ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the debate about the place of climate change in the curriculum and why the issue is so contentious. The debate about the position and status of climate change education, which can be traced back to at least the 1990s, continues. The increasing public and political awareness of the impact of climate change on the world means that it is likely that in the near future, climate change education will have a greater presence in the science curriculum in the UK and elsewhere. The chapter begins by looking at the relationship between nature, the environment and science education. Children were taught about nature and the natural environment long before we had schools and teachers. Sarah Lester, a policy researcher specialising in climate change education at the Grantham Institute of Climate Change at Imperial College, London, also expressed the idea that climate change was being stripped out of the curriculum.
