A poll conducted on more than 4,000 people across Canada and commissioned by Learning for a Sustainable Future (LSF), a climate organization headquartered at Toronto’s York University, has shown that Canadians are deeply concerned about climate change and young Canadians are more likely to feel humans can take action to deal with climate change now than they did in 2019.
The poll also shows Canadians are eager for students to have reliable information on climate change and the Toronto-based organization has called for an overhaul of all K-12 curriculum in every province to align with a focus on a climate-centered future.
Educators in Canada said they agree with results of the poll but struggle to find the time to fit it into their school curriculum.
“Teachers report so many barriers when it comes to trying to incorporate climate change into their teaching, whether it’s time or curriculum expectations,” said Jennifer Stevens, manager of learning, research and communication at LSF.
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According to Stevens, another setback is that schools do not have a supportive community, whether that’s parents or other teachers that are willing to take this on as a challenge, adding that it will take time for teachers to feel comfortable about knowing well enough to be able to teach climate change well in classrooms.
In this latest report, LSF also finds that across topics related to climate change education, people throughout the country are more informed, concerned and engaged in making change than they were three years ago.
Two-thirds of respondents said schools and teachers should be doing more to provide climate change education across subjects and grades and that that education should aim to change the way people behave.
Among educators, more than half teach that global temperatures have risen in the past 150 years and almost a third focus on political actions that can influence policy. That number is up from 26 per cent in 2019.
The poll also showed that students are increasingly moving from “aware” to “empowered,” meaning more young people who understand that human-caused climate change is happening now feel there are things we can do to change it.
Stevens said the data speaks for itself and should be used to help guide conversations about how to make climate change a critical part of classroom learning.
“This can be a really powerful tool for parents, students, teachers, policymakers to see that clear picture of what’s happening in Canada and then use that information to make improvements and learn more and do better in the education system,” she said.
Leger, which conducted the poll on LSF’s behalf, runs a panel of about 400,000 Canadians who take part in relevant surveys for a small payment.
Despite promotional assistance from the Canadian Teachers’ Federation and education ministries, LSF only got 406 responses (it had sought 1,000) from educators, even after opening up sampling on its own site.
Story was aapted from National Observer.
