According to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), “by 2050, with a projected increased global population of 9.6 billion, we would need the equivalent of almost 3 planets worth of resources to sustain our way of living, if our current consumption and production patterns remain the same.” In a speech at a university ceremony in 2015, then UN-General Secretary Ban Ki-Moon stressed that “we are the first generation that can end poverty. We are also the last generation that can slow global warming before it is too late.” We know the statistics, we have heard the warning signs, but so far, the face of the green revolution that is needed to tackle the climate crisis we are experiencing, is a young one. Across the globe, young climate activists are raising awareness about climate change, and exerting pressure on governments and businesses around the world to take action to save the planet. Greta Thunberg, age 17, began learning about climate change when she was 8, and began her school strikes to raise awareness about climate change when she was 15 years old. Greta’s protests soon went viral on social media, and with the invention of the Fridays for Future hashtag, this movement saw 1.4 million young people, from 2,233 cities in 128 countries across the globe taking part in a Fridays for Future Global Protest on 15 March 2019. In September 2019, the Global Week for Future saw over 4,500 strikes planned in 150 countries world-wide. This shows the power and influence that young people can have on raising awareness about climate change if they are educated about the issues and impassioned to make a difference. This example shows us that in today’s social media environment, where young digital natives thrive, individuals who never traditionally had a platform to reach multi-national corporations to change their behaviours or to influence policy, now have that platform. When we look at these young people, they may be the policymakers of tomorrow, but they can be the policy-influencers of today, even at a young age. The challenge for educators is to support young people to identify and reform their message, and to find their voice in the fight against climate change. The GRETA project will support primary school teachers to take on this challenge, by providing bespoke up-skilling opportunities to allow them to integrate innovative learning resources into their teaching practice and to develop their own challenge-based learning resources to raise awareness among young pupils about the climate crisis and the impact it will have on them. Household consumption contributes to 72% of global greenhouse gas emissions, meaning that household behaviour is therefore is an essential component in climate policies, especially in high income countries such as those in Europe (Dubois et al, 2019). As such, it is important that households and parents are educated on climate issues so that they can reduce their household consumption, make behavioural changes and help to reduce global carbon emissions. It is for this reason that the GRETA project will develop a ‘whole-school’ programme for primary schools to empower pupils, teachers, school leaders and parents to take the climate change challenge and to change their habits and behaviours for the sake of the planet. As such, the GRETA project aims to support school teachers and pupils to raise awareness of climate issues in their school communities, but also to take action; to identify what habits and behaviours they can change, and to assess the impact that these changes will have on their local, and the global, environment. Through the development of a suite of 42 WebQuest resources, teachers and pupils will be supported to increase their knowledge of climate issues, and to identify changes that they can make that will have a direct and positive impact on the environment. The GRETA project will also support primary school teachers, school leaders and parents to take responsibility and raise their awareness of climate change through targeted educational materials. To achieve these objectives, the project will see the development of the following 3 intellectual outputs: IO1 - Compendium of Climate Change Challenge WebQuests for Pupils IO2 - Continuing Professional Development Training Programme for Primary School Teachers and Leaders IO3 - Digital Resources to Increase Climate Literacy for Parents All of these educational resources will be free to use, adapt and apply to a variety of educational contexts; and the 'whole-school' approach for climate awareness piloted through the GRETA project will be transferable to other primary school communities across Europe who want to take the climate change challenge. All educational materials will be freely available through the project website and accessible through the Facebook page, by searching for the hashtag: #GRETA.
The aim of the GRETA project was to: (1) Build a whole school programme that would engage primary school leaders and teachers, pupils and parents in raising climate change awareness and taking climate action, through targeted educational materials, which would include: a. Compendium of Climate Change Challenge WebQuests for Pupils b. CPD Training for Primary School Teachers c. Digital Resources to Increase Climate Literacy for Parents; (2) Implement the programme in at least 2 schools per country; (3) Disseminate the model widely, and ensure its flexibility and adaptability for different contexts, securing its long-term sustainability (4) Host a series of National Dissemination Workshops at the end of the academic year in all partner countries so that the GRETA resources could be reviewed by other school communities and integrated into their academic calendars for the subsequent year. (5) Host a European conference on climate awareness in Greece at the end of the project, which would be attended by project partner organisations, and which would allow the project consortium to officially launch the GRETA project results and products.
In 2015, then UN-General Secretary Ban Ki-Moon stressed that “we are the first generation that can end poverty. We are also the last generation that can slow global warming before it is too late.” We know the statistics, we have heard the warning signs, but so far, the face of the green revolution that is needed to tackle the climate crisis we are experiencing, is a young one. At the same time, across the globe, young climate activists like Greta Thunberg, Lesein Mutunkei, Ella and Caitlin McEwan, are raising awareness about climate change, and exerting pressure on governments and businesses around the world to take action to save the planet. Greta’s protests went viral on social media, moving 1.4 million young people to take part in a Fridays for Future Global Protest. This shows the power and influence that young people can have on raising awareness about climate change if they are educated about the issues and impassioned to make a difference. All the above reveal the power of change if we immerse young people from an early age into the thinking of those role models and inspire them the willingnes to change the way we do things and take action against climate change on their local, and the global, environment.