Credit: Lucy Pope for UCL IOE.

23 April 2025

By Rupert Higham and Alison Kitson

“What do I do? Save the environment or let children go hungry?” So said one of ten secondary school headteachers who participated in case study research led by UCL’s Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability (CCCSE). (more…)

Credit: WavebreakMediaMicro via Adobe Stock.

31 March 2025

By Hans Svennevig

This post is the third of three in a series on disaster and climate education (DCE). In the first two posts, Pedagogies for disaster and climate risk reduction and Collaborative and co-learning for disaster and climate justice, Kaori Kitagawa introduced what DCE is about and techniques for collaborative co-learning to prepare for these scenarios and reduce their impact.

In this post I hone back in on schooling to share resources that could enable teachers to embed DCE within their lessons. I use the case of England’s Citizenship school curriculum, but the principle of embedding DCE into learning and the resources themselves have wider application. I draw on my and Kaori’s recent publication ‘Preparing for disasters through Citizenship Pedagogies’. The new Co-learning for disaster and climate justice master’s module at UCL uses these themes to enable students to develop pioneering approaches and resources of their own that further progress practice in DCE. (more…)

Credit: Pixel-Shot via Adobe Stock.

27 February 2025

By Kaori Kitagawa

This post is the second of three in a series on disaster and climate education. Read part one: Pedagogies for disaster and climate risk reduction.

Compared to didactic, ‘knowledge transmission’ models, more collaborative approaches stand out as an appropriate pedagogy for disaster and climate education (DCE). Preparing for disasters in communities or households will benefit from building solidarity and sharing responsibilities. By enabling a social learning environment, collaborative learning pedagogies cultivate a sense of belonging. This inclusive space values and respects every member, which plays a crucial role in promoting social justice. But we can go further. (more…)

Credit: 24Novembers via Adobe Stock.

20 February 2025

By Kaori Kitagawa

As climate change accelerates, regions worldwide are grappling with increased flooding, droughts and wildfires. Areas prone to seismic activity frequently face large-scale earthquakes. Such catastrophic events disrupt lives and have fatal consequences. We need ‘education’ – formal, informal and lifelong learning – to help citizens navigate them. In this series of blog posts, I and my colleague Hans Svennevig discuss pedagogical approaches to education for reducing disaster and climate risk. This post explores the range of pedagogies used, and in the second I look in particular at ‘co-learning’ approaches in this field. In the third post Hans shares practical examples. (more…)

Credit: Alisdare Hickson via CC BY-SA 2.0.

7 December 2023

By Lisa Fridkin and Katie Quy

Polling in the UK suggests growing public concern about climate change. For some of us, this concern may feel relatively abstract; we puzzle through, trying to make sense of ever more common stories – or direct experience – of heatwaves, flooding and loss of habitats, set against a dogged focus on economic growth and the issuing of new licences for oil and gas (when the IPCC tells us cutting fossil fuel use is essential). Controversies surrounding the COP28 presidency may have generated similar confusion. Alongside this, we have mainstream media cultivating a particular and negative stereotype around climate activists and engagement in non-violent direct action (NVDA). Our research, however, shows that these activists are not who the media would have us think they are. (more…)

Litter picking. Credit: lovelyday12 via Adobe Stock.

5 April 2023

By Lisa Fridkin, Neil Kaye, Katie Quy 

Much media attention is given to climate change denial and arguments over the impacts of human-driven climate change, as well as the actions of protest groups such as Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil. Meanwhile, the latest scientific reports offer a further stark warning on climate change, and call for top-down leadership to tackle the climate crisis with greater urgency. Data indicate that, in a broad sense, the British public is on board, with three-in-four Britons now saying they are worried about climate change, and many reporting they feel the UK government is failing in its duty to act. (more…)