Environmental education for a chaotic climate

What kind of environmental education do young citizens need for the increasingly dangerous climate futures they will face as global mean temperatures rise above 1.5 °C? For a range of social-cultural, economic, political and psychological reasons, teaching about climate change can be a fraught experience. Many teachers report they do not feel they had received adequate training to educate students about climate change or its complex underlying social and economic drivers. In this chapter we consider why it can be helpful for students to have a pre-existing connection with, and appreciation of, their local community and environment, and why socio-cultural insights for climate science education within and beyond the classroom coupled with informal field teaching experiences can help support children’s understanding of climate change and the underlying drivers of the climate crisis.