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Leading research into climate change and sustainability education which shapes the development of outstanding, free professional development for all teachers and school leaders.
Director: Professor Nicola Walshe
The importance of teacher development in the area of climate change and sustainability education is hard to overstate. This is the defining existential challenge of our time and the world that schoolchildren will encounter as adults will look different from our world today.
We aim to provide research-informed professional development for teachers and school leaders across all phases, subjects and career stages.
About us
- Focus
Teaching young people about climate change and sustainability must include but also go beyond the science of climate change and develop knowledge and values to help them to adapt to a changing world and to embrace the opportunities that more sustainable lifestyles might offer.
Teachers also need to know how to support young people with associated health and wellbeing concerns, including increasing levels of eco-anxiety. These are issues that need to be embedded across the school curriculum, but we know that many teachers lack confidence in this area.
We will work across faculties at UCL to ensure that this professional development is not only informed by our own research into current practice in schools but also by recent academic research to ensure that all our materials are up-to-date.
- Team
Leadership Group
- Nicola Walshe, Executive Director
- Alison Kitson, Programme Director
- Justin Dillon, Development Lead
Steering Group
Research Fellows
Associate Fellows
- David Mitchell
- Suman Ghosh
- Hans Svennevig
- Joy Perry
- Marian Mulcahy
- Andy Markwick
- Nasreen Majid
- Christine Mclean
- Zoe Moula
- Emma Newell
- Ruth Amos
- Emma O’Brien
- Rupert Higham
- Kaori Kitagawa
- Eleanore Hargreaves
- Grace Healy
- Andy Hodgkinson
- Roberto Filippi
- Alan Reid
- Sarah Sharp, University of Cambridge
- Christopher Turner
- Alessandra Palange
- Ross Purves
- David Godfrey
- Helen Jones
- Dr Andrew Lee, FRGS CGeog (Head of Geography, Wetherby Preparatory School)
- Ailsa Fidler
- Rachael Edwards
- Jie Gao
- Tamjid Mujtaba
Advisory Board
- Professor Lizzie Rushton, University of Stirling
- Lucy Ellis, Sustainability Lead, The Charter Schools Education Trust
- Kirsty Holder, Geography Teacher, Fortismere Secondary School
- Professor Chew Hung Chang, National Institute of Education, Singapore
- Helen Czerski, Department of Mechanical Engineering, UCL
- Mark Maslin, Department of Geography, UCL
- Chris Rapley, CBE, Department of Earth Scientists, UCL
- Dr Ana Angelita da Rocha, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- Dr Jess Tipton, Natural History Museum, UK
- Richard Sheriff, CEO Red Kite Trust
- David Lambert, Emeritus Professor of Geography Education, UCL
- Naheeda Maharasingam, Headteacher, Rathfern Primary School
- Morgan Phillips, Global Action Plan
- Francesca Kilpatrick, Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment, UCL
- Will Wale, Youth Focal Point for Sustainability and Climate Change, Department for Education
If you would like to apply to be an Associate Fellow, please contact: climateeducation@ucl.ac.ukIf you would like to apply to be an Associate Fellow, please contact: climateeducation@ucl.ac.uk
Our activities
- Past events and engagement
Consultancy
Blogs
- Blog: Reflections on international climate change and environmental policy engagement (11 December 2023) – Dr Kate Greer
- Blog: Action for Climate Empowerment: why this ‘policy glue’ needs a cross-government approach (30 November 2023) – Dr Kate Greer
- Blog: Educating for Sustainable Futures in Secondary Education (29 November 2023) – Prof Nicola Walshe
- Blog: The potential of infrapolitical dissent for influencing climate change education policy (4 October 2023) – Dr Kate Greer et al.
Events
- Symposium: Young people’s perspectives on climate change and sustainability education; Showcase of sustainability education in Chinese early years settings (16 July 2024)
- Presentation: Teaching for Sustainable Futures Taster Session – Primary Mathematics and Primary English modules (13 June 2024)
- Webinar: An Introduction to Artscaping: Establishing arts-in-nature opportunities in schools (10 October 2023)
- Workshop: Teaching for Sustainable Futures CPD and results from Teaching climate change and sustainability: A survey of teachers in England (13 July 2023)
- Webinar: Professor Justin Dillon in conversation with Professor Alan Reid (22 September 2023)
- Workshop: Arts, nature and wellbeing: Journeying towards sustainability for children and young people (19 April 2023)
- Webinar: Leading sustainability in schools (27 March 2023)
- Webinar: Teaching about climate change: Principles and Priorities (4 July 2022)
Media
- "Remember we are nature, we must protect nature" – Professor Nicola Walshe speaks on Bloomsbury Radio's Research and Development Show (RnD).
- Publications
2024
- Walshe, N.; Sheldrake, R.; Healy, G.; Edwards, RC; Wale, W.; Hargreaves, E.; (2024) Climate Change and Sustainability Education: A survey of students in England. IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society: London, UK.
- Greer, K., Walshe, N., Kitson, A. & Dillon, J., (2024) Responding to the environmental emergency through education: the imperative for teacher support across all subjects. UCL Open Environment 6(1).
- Walshe, N., Moula, Z. & Cox-Condron, H. (2024) ‘The heart of the forest is here’: Reframing children’s disempowered relationships with once-familiar places through Eco-Capabilities. In Pike, S. & Rawlings-Smith, E. (Eds) Encountering Ideas of Place in Education, pp 39–52. Routledge.
2023
- Cambridge Curiosity and Imagination (2023) Artscaping: A guide to establishing arts-in-nature opportunities in your schools. Cambridge Curiosity and Imagination and University College London.
- Dillon, J. (2023) Climate change education. In J. Dillon & M. Watts (Eds). Debates in Science Education (2nd edition) (pp. 59–72). Routledge
- Dillon, J. (2023) Environmental and science education: Overlaps and issues. In S. Faircloth (Ed.). Oxford Bibliographies in Education. Oxford University Press.
- Dillon, J. & Herman, B. (2023) Environmental education. In N. G. Lederman, D. L. Zeidler & J. S. Lederman (Eds). Handbook of Research on Science Education, Volume 3. (pp. 717–748). Routledge.
- Dillon, J. & Watts, M. (2023) Debates in science education. In J. Dillon & M. Watts (Eds). Debates in Science Education (2nd edition) (pp. 1–9). Routledge.
- Greer, K. & Svennevig, H. (2023) Citizenship education in the context of climate change: Two research frameworks that can support teaching, Teaching Citizenship, 58.
- Greer, K, King, H. & Glackin, M. (2023) ’Standing back or stepping up?’ Exploring climate change education policy influence in England. British Education Research Journal, 49(5), 1088–1107.
- Kitson, A. (2023) Climate change teaching for sustainable futures, Teaching Citizenship, 58
- Mitchell, D. (2023) Teaching for Sustainable Futures: A research-informed professional development course, Geography, 108(3), 147–151
- Moula, Z. & Walshe, N. (2023) How arts-in-nature experiences can boost the wellbeing of children and young people. The House, 17 April.
- Moula Z., Walshe N., Lee E. (2023) “It was like I was not a person, it was like I was the nature”: The impact of arts-in-nature experiences on the wellbeing of children living in areas of high deprivation. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 90, 102072.
- Owens, J., Greer, K., King, H., Glackin, M. (2023) Conceptualising HE educators’ capabilities to ‘teach the crisis’: Towards critical and transformative environmental pedagogies. Frontiers in Education, 8.
- Reiss, M. J. (2023) ASE Presidential Address: Science education at a time of existential risk. School Science Review in Depth, 105(389), 5–10.
- Rushton, E., Sharp, S. & Walshe, N. (2023) Global Priorities for Enhancing School-based Climate Change and Sustainability Education. British Council
- Rushton, E. A. C., Sharp, S., Kitson, A. & Walshe, N. (2023) Reflecting on climate change education priorities in secondary schools in England: Moving beyond learning about climate change to the emotions of living with climate change. Sustainability, 15(8), 6497.
- Scaramanga, J. & Reiss, M. J. (2023) Evolutionary stasis: Creationism, evolution and climate change in the Accelerated Christian Education curriculum. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 18, 809–827.
- Walshe, N. & Perry, J. (2023) Nurturing eco-capabilities for transformative learning and wellbeing. Primary Geographer, 110(1), 7–9.
- Walshe, N., Bungay, H. & Dadswell, A. (2023) Sustainable outdoor education: Organisations connecting children and young people with nature through the arts. Sustainability, 15(5), 3941.
- Walshe, N., Perry, J. & Moula, Z. (2023) Eco-Capabilities: Arts-in-nature interventions for supporting nature visibilisation and wellbeing in children. Sustainability, 15, 12290.
2022
- Dunlop, L. & Rushton, E. A. C. (2022) Putting climate change at the heart of education: Is England’s strategy a placebo for policy? British Educational Research Journal, 48(6), 1083–1101.
- Howard-Jones, P. & Dillon, J. (2022) Climate Change education: A “world-leading strategy” would benefit from being research-informed. PolicyBristol.
- Kitson, A. (2022) What does climate change and sustainability have to do with me? Educate.
- Reiss, M. J. (2022) Learning to teach controversial topics. In: Handbook of Research on Science Teacher Education, Luft, J. A. & Jones, M. G. (Eds), Routledge, pp. 403–413.
- Rushton, E. A. C. & Walshe, N. (2022) Climate change, sustainability and the environment: The continued importance of biological education. Journal of Biological Education, 56(3), 243–244.
- Walshe, N. & Perry, J. (2022) Transformative geography education: Developing eco-capabilities for a flourishing and sustainable future. Teaching Geography, 47(3), 94–97.
- Walshe, N. & Sund, L. (Eds) (2022) Developing (Transformative) Environmental and Sustainability Education in Classroom Practice. MDPI.
- Walshe, N., Moula, Z. & Lee, E. (2022) Eco-capabilities as a pathway to wellbeing and sustainability. Sustainability, 14(6), 3582.
2021
- Walshe, N. (2021) How can we meet the pledge to put climate ‘at the heart of education’? Schools Week.
- Walshe, N. & Moula, Z. (2021) Eco-capabilities: Supporting children’s wellbeing through arts in nature. Environmental Education, 126, 16–17.