7 Tips for Teaching Climate Change in the Classroom

Teaching climate change in the classroom? Absolutely! But how can you approach it effectively? Whether it’s part of your curriculum but you’re worried about triggering eco-anxiety in your students, or you believe it’s essential to address this pressing societal issue, where should you begin? No matter your teaching background, grade level, or subject area, we have plenty of practical tips to help you get started. Let us guide you!

1. No Need to Be an Expert—All Subjects Can Be Involved!

Every discipline offers opportunities to teach about climate change. While the topic is deeply rooted in scientific education, that doesn’t mean teachers of other subjects can’t—or shouldn’t—address it. Why? Because climate change is a societal issue, and it’s our responsibility to equip the younger generation with the tools to understand it. Teachers play a pivotal role in this effort. Furthermore, teaching climate change involves fostering systems thinking and critical citizenship.

No need to be an expert—OCE resources are here to guide you!

Here are a few ideas to get started:

• Literature teachers: Work with your students on crafting new narratives that help them imagine a changing yet desirable future. This can be done through creative writing or even by producing podcasts.
• Math teachers: Encourage students to calculate their carbon footprint or analyze climate data to practice working with averages and other statistical concepts.
• Teachers of social sciences, geography, philosophy, or even school counselors: Organize a simulation of a climate negotiation to explore the complexities of global collaboration.

Every subject has a unique way to contribute—let’s seize the opportunity!

• Visual Arts teachers: Ask students to design posters that raise awareness about climate change or promote more responsible consumption practices.

• Arts or Literature specializations: Help students explore and express their emotions about climate change through creative projects.

• PE teachers: Propose a role-playing game to explain the greenhouse effect. For instance, a game of tag can illustrate how greenhouse gases "capture" infrared radiation and redirect it in all directions, including back toward the Earth's surface, causing the greenhouse effect.

• English, French, German, or Spanish teachers: Use OCE resources translated into these languages and adapted to different national contexts. These include short films, manuals, and activities. Simply change the language setting on our website to explore the materials available.

• Librarians and media specialists: Use climate change as an opportunity to teach critical thinking by guiding students through an analysis of social media posts and media articles. OCE even offers an escape game on this topic.

• Engineering and practical disciplines (Agriculture, Technology, etc.): Work on designing solutions for climate adaptation or mitigation as part of hands-on projects.

• Elementary school teachers: Climate change education works perfectly in primary schools, where many activities naturally lend themselves to interdisciplinarity. You could also organize school-wide projects on awareness, mitigation, or adaptation, such as implementing a walking bus program or creating a green schoolyard ("oasis courtyard").

2. Embrace Interdisciplinary Teaching

Physical laws, chain reactions, impacts on ecosystems, and consequences for health, the economy, or geopolitics—because climate change is a global phenomenon, teaching it requires a multidisciplinary approach to address all its dimensions. For example, exploring climate migration in geography while connecting it to concepts in physical sciences, such as rising sea levels or the increase in extreme weather events, highlights the systemic nature of the issue and gives deeper meaning to students’ learning.

Another compelling reason for interdisciplinary work is the potential for longer, collaborative sessions when teachers from different subjects join forces. These extended sessions can be used to organize more substantial activities or even full-scale projects. Once again, OCE’s ready-to-use resources are here to make this easier, complementing collaborative planning sessions with your colleagues.

By working together, educators can not only deepen students’ understanding of climate change but also foster connections across disciplines that reflect the complexity of real-world challenges.

3. Harness Active Learning Strategies

It’s almost a given: active learning pedagogies help students better grasp knowledge by encouraging their engagement and participation. Serious games, role-playing, modeling, experimentation, and information gathering are all methods that resonate with young learners. In our teacher guides, we often aim to facilitate active student involvement in the classroom. Here are some approaches we highly recommend for fostering "active learning":

• Inquiry-based learning: This method encourages students to formulate a problem, propose hypotheses, think about how to test them, interpret results, and organize knowledge. For instance, in biology or physics, students might investigate whether melting sea ice or continental ice contributes more to rising sea levels. They can form hypotheses and conduct experiments using a bowl of water and ice cubes, introducing them to the scientific method in an engaging way.

• Project-based learning: This teaching approach focuses on producing something tangible. Projects are often framed as open-ended questions that prompt students to investigate, research, and develop their own solutions. For example, “How can we reduce our school’s carbon footprint?” The teacher’s role is to guide students in defining their project with achievable objectives, redirect activities or discussions as needed, oversee debates, and act as an expert—or bring in external partners, such as scientists, local officials, or other experts, when necessary.

• Negotiation and debate: This pedagogical practice builds critical citizenship and communication skills. For instance, simulating a climate COP allows students to critically examine current models, learn to listen and debate, and gain media literacy.

4. Acknowledge Emotions and Link Them to Solutions

En savoir plus sur la manière de gérer l’éco-anxiété des élèves

Worried about discussing climate change with potentially eco-anxious students? Or concerned about inadvertently triggering eco-anxiety yourself?

On the contrary, it’s crucial for you, as an adult and educator, to take the time to recognize and validate all the emotions your students (and even you) might be feeling. Remind them that these emotions—whether fear, frustration, or hope—are entirely legitimate. You can even share your own feelings and concerns with them. Listening to your students can also be an opportunity to provide clarity and nuance around climate risks. For instance, reassure them that rising sea levels won’t submerge France in five years!

While climate change education can be uncomfortable, this isn’t unique—it’s also true for other challenging subjects like world wars, genocides, or colonialism. Yet, these topics are essential to study, and the same goes for climate change.

By addressing this subject openly and honestly, you help students fully grasp the stakes and consequences of this global phenomenon. Confronting reality equips them to take meaningful action.

That said, it’s equally important to immediately couple these discussions with reflections on solutions for mitigating or adapting to climate change. This ensures students don’t fall into a sense of powerlessness or inaction.

For more insights on managing students’ eco-anxiety, click here.

5. Empower Students Through Action

Taking action is the best antidote to eco-anxiety!

By encouraging your students to engage in tangible, local, and innovative initiatives, you help them transform their anxiety into positive momentum. Participating in projects aimed at building a sustainable future boosts their confidence and optimism about their ability to make a real difference.

One effective way to inspire action is by organizing a Climathon—a dedicated day focused on a specific local climate challenge. Throughout the day, students participate in workshops, conduct experiments, and engage with experts. Working in teams, they brainstorm ideas for projects, and by the end of the day, present concrete plans they will implement during the school year.

Inviting students to participate in collective actions fosters a sense of belonging and shared responsibility. Working together toward a common goal strengthens their confidence in their ability to create a positive impact in their communities and beyond. This approach also addresses the values underpinning their actions. Knowledge alone isn’t enough to inspire change. Addressing topics like solidarity, justice, equality, minority rights, and local cultures provides a powerful complement to factual learning and encourages virtuous behaviors.

By turning concern into action, students not only learn—they become agents of change.

6. Emphasize Proximity

The closer examples are—geographically or chronologically—the greater their impact. Discussing recent floods in your region, is likely to resonate more with students than mentioning those in India. Similarly, talking about events from last week in Asia will capture their attention more effectively than referencing incidents from several years ago. Combining geographic and chronological proximity is a surefire way to captivate your audience. Whenever possible, tie your lessons to current events, perhaps by showing relevant news clips.

Are you located near the coast or planning a seaside field trip? Use the ocean as a gateway to discuss climate change: its relationship to the climate system, rising sea levels, disrupted ocean currents, or acidification. These topics open doors to rich discussions about the ocean's economic and cultural significance. For younger students, you might consider projects on adapting beaches to be more resilient to climate change. For older students, explore the intricate ocean food webs and their vulnerabilities.

Is your school near a forest? Consider engaging your students in the participatory science project, “Who Protects the Oaks?” This initiative explores how the current climate affects interactions between trees, herbivores (like caterpillars), and their predators, aiming to anticipate how climate change could impact an oak tree’s ability to defend itself against herbivores.

Focusing on proximity not only enhances student engagement but also encourages them to share their newfound knowledge with family and friends, creating a ripple effect of awareness and understanding.

7. Concrete, Practical, and Tangible Examples

Calculate the carbon footprint of different ways to travel from home to school, use math to analyze data from biology lessons, redesign your schoolyard into a climate-resilient "oasis courtyard," build or use weather instruments like a rain gauge or thermometer to collect and analyze data, or conduct a climate negotiation simulation. These are just a few examples of how to ground learning in real life while equipping students with knowledge they acquire almost effortlessly.

Teaching critical thinking, the scientific method, teamwork… it becomes clear that climate change education is an excellent way to help students develop transferable skills that will benefit them throughout their lives.

Now that you’re equipped with ideas, why wait any longer? Dive in and start making a difference!