The Power of Youth-led Action Research in Improving Climate Education and Action
December 7th, 2023 | Blogs
By Estelle Day and Ben Vorspan
In 2022, 17,000 young people from 166 countries, questioned in the largest survey of its kind, called for comprehensive changes to education to better address the global climate and environmental emergency. This was echoed by youth at the Conference of Youth (COY16) in Glasgow, the pre-COP Youth4Climate (2021) in Milan, and again at the Youth declaration at the Transforming Education Summit (2022) in New York. With greater unison and urgency than ever before, youth are calling on governments to transform education to provide them with the right knowledge, skills, and values to adapt to and mitigate climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. [1]
Youth are demanding experiential climate change and environmental education that helps them understand and recognize the human place within nature and how to live within our planetary boundaries. This includes more contextualized environmental education that engages with and draws on their local communities. They are also claiming more say in decision-making on climate and environmental action in their schools and communities.
As a global non-profit organization working at the intersection of health, education and socioeconomic equity, JSI’s experience shows that youth-led research can help ignite some of these changes.
