Climate Change Education: A proposal of a Category-Based Tool for Curriculum Analysis to Achieve the Climate Competence
Abstract Climate Change is the most important threat to our planet. The Paris Agreement of 2015 provides a strategy to reduce its impacts through decarbonization, but this pathway requires a deep change in the society. Education has been identified as a major tool for adaptation and mitigation in many international treaties, but a general framework or strategy to implement Climate Change Education is yet to be defined. To provide this framework we propose the introduction of a Climate Change competence. This concept will help to organize many of the attributes needed by society to produce a coherent response, around a well-known concept in Education such as the competence, which could be easily introduced in the national legislations and scholar systems.For this competence to be implemented, we need to assess how fit the current curriculum is or how it could be used to achieve the Climate Competence. For this we propose to develop an evaluation tool of the educational system, to assess the fitness or capabilities of a given curriculum to understand Climate Change.We propose a category-based analysis to describe the strengths and weaknesses of a given curriculum, based on the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) reports and related documents, which are the largest scientific compilations on the problem.The categories provide a simple and powerful tool to analyse to what extent a given curriculum could be useful to describe Climate Change and its consequences. This tool could be used to analyse different curriculums across different regions, educational levels or even different education systems and provide an accurate diagnostic of how useful a curriculum is to address this problem.
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Anderson, A. (2010). Combating climate change through quality education. Retrieved from https://brook.gs/33Mxw3m
Arbuthnott, K. D. (2009). Educación para el desarrollo sostenible la Educación Superior. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 10(2), 152-163. doi:https://doi.org/10.1108/14676370910945954
Bjurström, A., & Polk, M. (2011). Physical and economic bias in climate change research: a scientometric study of IPCC Third Assessment Report. Climatic Change, 108(1-2), 1-22. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-011-0018-8
Bowen, G. A. (2009). Document analysis as a qualitative research method. Qualitative Research Journal, 9(2), 27-40. doi:https://doi.org/10.3316/QRJ0902027
Chew-Hung, C., & Pascua, L. (2016). Singapore students’ misconceptions of climate change. International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education, 25(1), 84-96. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/10382046.2015.1106206
Cooper, O., Keeley, A., & Merenlender, A. (2019). Curriculum gaps for adult climate literacy. Conservation Science and Practice, 1(10). doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/csp2.102
Delors, J., Amagi, I., Carniero, R., Chung, F., Geremek, B., Gorham,W., Kornhauser, A., Manley, M., Mufti, I., Quero, M.P., Savane M., Singh, K., Stavenhagen, R., Suhr, M.W., & Nanzhao, Z. (1996). Learning: the treasure within. Report to UNESCO of the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first Century. UNESCO Publishing, Paris. doi:https://doi.org/10.7788/ijbe.1996.24.1.253
Edenhofer O., Pichs-Madruga, R., Sokona, Y., Kadner, S., Minx, J. C., Brunner, S., Agrawala, S., Baiocchi, G., Bashmakov, I. A., Blanco, G., Broome, J., Bruckner, T., Bustamante, M., Clarke, L., Conte Grand, M., Creutzig, F., Cruz-Núñez, X., Dhakal, S., Dubash, N. K., Eickemeier, P., Farahani, E., Fischedick, M., Fleurbaey, M., Gerlagh, R., Gómez-Echeverri, L., Gupta, S., Harnisch, J., Jiang, K., Jotzo, F., Kartha, S., Klasen, S., Kolstad, C., Krey, V., Kunreuther, H., Lucon, O., Masera, O., Mulugetta, Y., Norgaard, R. B., Patt, A., Ravindranath, N. H., Riahi, K., Roy, J., Sagar, A., Schaeffer, R., Schlömer, S., Seto, K. C., Seyboth, K., Sims, R., Smith, P., Somanathan, E., Stavins, R., von Stechow, C., Sterner, T., Sugiyama, T., Suh, S., Ürge-Vorsatz, D., Urama, K., Venables, A., Victor, D. G., Weber, E., Zhou, D., Zou, J., & Zwickel, T. (2014) Technical Summary. In O. Edenhofer, R. Pichs-Madruga, Y. Sokona, E. Farahani, S. Kadner, K. Seyboth, A. Adler, I. Baum, S. Brunner, P. Eickemeier, B. Kriemann, J. Savolainen, S. Schlömer, C. von Stechow, T. Zwickel, & J.C. Minx (Eds.), Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
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Field, C. B., Barros, V. R., Mach, K. J., Mastrandrea, M. D., Aalst, M. V., Adger, W. N., Arent, D. J., Barnett, J., Betts, R., Bilir, T. E., Birkmann, J., Carmin, J., Chadee, D. D., Challinor, A. J., Chatterjee, M., Cramer, W., Davidson, D.J., Estrada, Y. O., Gattuso, J. P., Hijioka, Y., Hoegh-Guldberg, O., Huang, H. Q., Insarov, G. E., Jones, R. N., Kovats, R. S., Lankao, P. R., Larsen, J. N., Losada, I. J., Marengo, J. A., McLean, R. F., Mearns, L. O., Mechler, R., Morton, J. F., Niang, I., Oki, T., Olwoch, J. M., Opondo, M., Poloczanska, E. S., Portner, H. O., Redsteer, M. H., Reisinger, A., Revi, A., Schmidt, D. N., Shaw, M. R., Solecki, W., Stone, D. A., Stone, J. M. R., Strzepek, K. M., Suarez, A. G., Tschakert, P., Valentini, R., Vicuna, S., Villamizar, A., Vincent, K. E., Warren, R., White, L. L., Wilbanks, T. J., Wong, P. P., & Yohe, G. W. (2014). Technical summary. In: C. B. Field, V. R. Barros, D. J. Dokken, K. J. Mach, (Eds.), Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Part A: Global and Sectoral Aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (pp. 35–94). Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
Gallardo, H. J. P., Vergel, M., & Villamizar, F. Y. (2017). Investigación intervención y enfoque multimétodo en Ciencias Humanas y educación matemática. Revista Logos Ciencia y Tecnología, 9(2), 85-96. doi:https://doi.org/10.22335/rlct.v9i2.458
González-Gaudiano, E., & Meira-Cartea, P. (2010). Climate change education and communication: A critical perspective on obstacles and resistances. In D. Selby & F. Kagawa (Eds.), Education and climate change: Living and learning in interesting times (pp. 13–34). London: Routledge.
Hulme, M., & Mahony, M. (2010). Climate change: What do we know about the IPCC? Progress in Physical Geography: Earth and Environment, 34(5): 705-718. doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/0309133310373719
IPCC (1988). Report of the First Session of the WMO/UNEP Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Geneva: World Meteorological Organization.
IPCC (1998). Principles governing the IPCC work: Approved at the fourteenth session (Vienna, 1-3 October 1998) on 1 October 1998, amended at the twenty-first session (Vienna, 3 and 6-7 November 2003), the twenty-fifth session (Mauritius, 26-28 April 2006), the thirty-fifth session (Geneva, 6-9 June 2012) and the thirty-seventh session (Batumi, 14–18 October 2013), Geneva.
IPCC (2014). Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Core Writing Team, R. K. Pachauri, & L. A. Meyer (Eds.). Geneva: IPCC.
Massot, M. I., Dorio, I., & Sabariego, M. (2004). Estrategias de recogida y análisis de la información. En R. Bisquerra (Ed.), Metodología de investigación educativa (pp. 329-366). Madrid: La Muralla.
Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte, Orden ECD/65/2015, de 21 de enero. Boletín Oficial del Estado, núm. 25, de 29 de enero de 2015. Retrieved from: https://bit.ly/2QOL3SI
Mochizuki, Y., & Bryan, A. (2015). Climate change education in the context of education for sustainable development: Rationale and principles. Journal of Education for Sustainable Development, 9(1), 4–26. doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/0973408215569109
NOAA (2009). The essential principles of climate literacy. Retrieved from: https://bit.ly/33NwvrE
Pruneau, D., Grave, H., Bourque, W., & Langis, J. (2003). Experimentation with a socio-constructivist process for climate change education. Environmental Education Research, 9, 429-446. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/1350462032000126096
Shepardson, D. P., Niyogi, D., Choi, S., & Charusombat, U. (2009). Seventh Grade Students’ Conceptions of Global Warming and Climate Change. Environmental Education Research, 15(5), 549–70. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/13504620903114592
Stevenson, R. B., Nicholls, J., & Whitehouse, H. (2017). What is climate change education? Curriculum Perspectives, 37(1), 67-71. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s41297-017-0015-9
UNESCO (2010). Climate Change Education for Sustainable Development. 2-19. Paris France. Retrieved June, 2019 from: https://bit.ly/2WP1WjU
UNFCCC (2015). United Nations framework convention on climate change. Agreement. Paris, France. 2015.
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Zhang, Y. X., Chao, Q. C., Zheng, Q. H., & Huang, L. (2017). The withdrawal of the US from the Paris Agreement and its impact on global climate change governance. Advances in Climate Change Research, 8(4), 213-219. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.accre.2017.08.005
Arbuthnott, K. D. (2009). Educación para el desarrollo sostenible la Educación Superior. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 10(2), 152-163. doi:https://doi.org/10.1108/14676370910945954
Bjurström, A., & Polk, M. (2011). Physical and economic bias in climate change research: a scientometric study of IPCC Third Assessment Report. Climatic Change, 108(1-2), 1-22. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-011-0018-8
Bowen, G. A. (2009). Document analysis as a qualitative research method. Qualitative Research Journal, 9(2), 27-40. doi:https://doi.org/10.3316/QRJ0902027
Chew-Hung, C., & Pascua, L. (2016). Singapore students’ misconceptions of climate change. International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education, 25(1), 84-96. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/10382046.2015.1106206
Cooper, O., Keeley, A., & Merenlender, A. (2019). Curriculum gaps for adult climate literacy. Conservation Science and Practice, 1(10). doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/csp2.102
Delors, J., Amagi, I., Carniero, R., Chung, F., Geremek, B., Gorham,W., Kornhauser, A., Manley, M., Mufti, I., Quero, M.P., Savane M., Singh, K., Stavenhagen, R., Suhr, M.W., & Nanzhao, Z. (1996). Learning: the treasure within. Report to UNESCO of the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first Century. UNESCO Publishing, Paris. doi:https://doi.org/10.7788/ijbe.1996.24.1.253
Edenhofer O., Pichs-Madruga, R., Sokona, Y., Kadner, S., Minx, J. C., Brunner, S., Agrawala, S., Baiocchi, G., Bashmakov, I. A., Blanco, G., Broome, J., Bruckner, T., Bustamante, M., Clarke, L., Conte Grand, M., Creutzig, F., Cruz-Núñez, X., Dhakal, S., Dubash, N. K., Eickemeier, P., Farahani, E., Fischedick, M., Fleurbaey, M., Gerlagh, R., Gómez-Echeverri, L., Gupta, S., Harnisch, J., Jiang, K., Jotzo, F., Kartha, S., Klasen, S., Kolstad, C., Krey, V., Kunreuther, H., Lucon, O., Masera, O., Mulugetta, Y., Norgaard, R. B., Patt, A., Ravindranath, N. H., Riahi, K., Roy, J., Sagar, A., Schaeffer, R., Schlömer, S., Seto, K. C., Seyboth, K., Sims, R., Smith, P., Somanathan, E., Stavins, R., von Stechow, C., Sterner, T., Sugiyama, T., Suh, S., Ürge-Vorsatz, D., Urama, K., Venables, A., Victor, D. G., Weber, E., Zhou, D., Zou, J., & Zwickel, T. (2014) Technical Summary. In O. Edenhofer, R. Pichs-Madruga, Y. Sokona, E. Farahani, S. Kadner, K. Seyboth, A. Adler, I. Baum, S. Brunner, P. Eickemeier, B. Kriemann, J. Savolainen, S. Schlömer, C. von Stechow, T. Zwickel, & J.C. Minx (Eds.), Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
Ferrari, E., Ballegeer, A. M., Fuertes, M. A., Herrero, P., Delgado, L., Corrochano, D., Andrés-Sánchez, S., Marc, K., García-Vinuesa, A., Meira, P., Martinez, F., & Ruiz, C. (2019). Improvement on Social Representation of Climate Change through a Knowledge-Based MOOC in Spanish. Sustainability, 11(22), 6317. doi:https://doi.org/10.3390/su11226317
Field, C. B., Barros, V. R., Mach, K. J., Mastrandrea, M. D., Aalst, M. V., Adger, W. N., Arent, D. J., Barnett, J., Betts, R., Bilir, T. E., Birkmann, J., Carmin, J., Chadee, D. D., Challinor, A. J., Chatterjee, M., Cramer, W., Davidson, D.J., Estrada, Y. O., Gattuso, J. P., Hijioka, Y., Hoegh-Guldberg, O., Huang, H. Q., Insarov, G. E., Jones, R. N., Kovats, R. S., Lankao, P. R., Larsen, J. N., Losada, I. J., Marengo, J. A., McLean, R. F., Mearns, L. O., Mechler, R., Morton, J. F., Niang, I., Oki, T., Olwoch, J. M., Opondo, M., Poloczanska, E. S., Portner, H. O., Redsteer, M. H., Reisinger, A., Revi, A., Schmidt, D. N., Shaw, M. R., Solecki, W., Stone, D. A., Stone, J. M. R., Strzepek, K. M., Suarez, A. G., Tschakert, P., Valentini, R., Vicuna, S., Villamizar, A., Vincent, K. E., Warren, R., White, L. L., Wilbanks, T. J., Wong, P. P., & Yohe, G. W. (2014). Technical summary. In: C. B. Field, V. R. Barros, D. J. Dokken, K. J. Mach, (Eds.), Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Part A: Global and Sectoral Aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (pp. 35–94). Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
Gallardo, H. J. P., Vergel, M., & Villamizar, F. Y. (2017). Investigación intervención y enfoque multimétodo en Ciencias Humanas y educación matemática. Revista Logos Ciencia y Tecnología, 9(2), 85-96. doi:https://doi.org/10.22335/rlct.v9i2.458
González-Gaudiano, E., & Meira-Cartea, P. (2010). Climate change education and communication: A critical perspective on obstacles and resistances. In D. Selby & F. Kagawa (Eds.), Education and climate change: Living and learning in interesting times (pp. 13–34). London: Routledge.
Hulme, M., & Mahony, M. (2010). Climate change: What do we know about the IPCC? Progress in Physical Geography: Earth and Environment, 34(5): 705-718. doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/0309133310373719
IPCC (1988). Report of the First Session of the WMO/UNEP Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Geneva: World Meteorological Organization.
IPCC (1998). Principles governing the IPCC work: Approved at the fourteenth session (Vienna, 1-3 October 1998) on 1 October 1998, amended at the twenty-first session (Vienna, 3 and 6-7 November 2003), the twenty-fifth session (Mauritius, 26-28 April 2006), the thirty-fifth session (Geneva, 6-9 June 2012) and the thirty-seventh session (Batumi, 14–18 October 2013), Geneva.
IPCC (2014). Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Core Writing Team, R. K. Pachauri, & L. A. Meyer (Eds.). Geneva: IPCC.
Massot, M. I., Dorio, I., & Sabariego, M. (2004). Estrategias de recogida y análisis de la información. En R. Bisquerra (Ed.), Metodología de investigación educativa (pp. 329-366). Madrid: La Muralla.
Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte, Orden ECD/65/2015, de 21 de enero. Boletín Oficial del Estado, núm. 25, de 29 de enero de 2015. Retrieved from: https://bit.ly/2QOL3SI
Mochizuki, Y., & Bryan, A. (2015). Climate change education in the context of education for sustainable development: Rationale and principles. Journal of Education for Sustainable Development, 9(1), 4–26. doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/0973408215569109
NOAA (2009). The essential principles of climate literacy. Retrieved from: https://bit.ly/33NwvrE
Pruneau, D., Grave, H., Bourque, W., & Langis, J. (2003). Experimentation with a socio-constructivist process for climate change education. Environmental Education Research, 9, 429-446. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/1350462032000126096
Shepardson, D. P., Niyogi, D., Choi, S., & Charusombat, U. (2009). Seventh Grade Students’ Conceptions of Global Warming and Climate Change. Environmental Education Research, 15(5), 549–70. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/13504620903114592
Stevenson, R. B., Nicholls, J., & Whitehouse, H. (2017). What is climate change education? Curriculum Perspectives, 37(1), 67-71. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s41297-017-0015-9
UNESCO (2010). Climate Change Education for Sustainable Development. 2-19. Paris France. Retrieved June, 2019 from: https://bit.ly/2WP1WjU
UNFCCC (2015). United Nations framework convention on climate change. Agreement. Paris, France. 2015.
UNFCCC. (1992). United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, p. 25. New York. Retrieved from https://bit.ly/39nAtZ6
United Nations (1994). United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change: Resolution/adopted by the General Assembly. Retrieved from: https://bit.ly/2wuWb0d
Zhang, Y. X., Chao, Q. C., Zheng, Q. H., & Huang, L. (2017). The withdrawal of the US from the Paris Agreement and its impact on global climate change governance. Advances in Climate Change Research, 8(4), 213-219. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.accre.2017.08.005
Fuertes, M. Ángel, Andrés, S., Corrochano, D., Delgado, L., Herrero-Teijón, P., Ballegeer, A. M., Ferrari-Lagos, E., Fernández, R., & Ruiz, C. (2020). Climate Change Education: A proposal of a Category-Based Tool for Curriculum Analysis to Achieve the Climate Competence. Education in The Knowledge Society, 21, 13. https://doi.org/10.14201/eks.22823
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