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On 5th November 2021, in the COP26 (26th United Nations Climate Change Conference), Nadhim Zahawi made an announcement regarding the measures that have to be followed to protect Earth through educating children.

Nadhim Zahawi, the Education Secretary of the United Kingdom, announced in the COP26 speech that the UK will be going to take several measures to bring the problems related to climatic change in the educational system. This will encourage children in protecting and saving Mother Earth.

As per the measures mentioned in the COP26 speech, guidance will be provided to the country’s teachers to educate children with a world-leading education system. It will be concerned about the climatic changes through the model science curriculum that will be ready by the year 2023. The measures will teach the nation’s children about nature and the importance of protecting it.

Some of the measures to be taken regarding the climatic changes are:

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  Now, Students will be able to get engaged with nature within their academic campus. For this, biodiversity will be created in the college, school, or nursery grounds. It can be started with small initiatives like installing bird feeders.

  
  


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  To compete with other schools and track their data, students will be able to upload their data in the virtual National Education Nature Park (which will be launched soon). Individuals will be able to gain knowledge and develop their skills.

  
  


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  Annually, to honor the work of these students a national awards ceremony will be held.

  
  


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  New projects can be taken by young people like turning a particular neighborhood into a biodiversity area. Further, they will be rewarded for their project by different levels of awards such as gold, silver, and bronze.

  
  


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  Additionally, the government will install Energy Pods at schools for heating water and heaters with zero carbon emission.

  
  


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  From December 2021, teachers will be trained from December 2021 onwards to include sustainability and climate change into their teaching, even in regular subjects.

  
  

Total areas of the universities, nurseries, colleges, and schools take up around twice the land area of Birmingham. So, surely this could help in changing the biodiversity map of the U.K. majorly contributing in saving the planet Earth.

In the UK education secretary's speech, he said that the Climate Leaders Awards and National Education Nature Park will let individuals get hands-on experience of nurturing and protecting nature around themselves.

Words from Dhruba Dasgupta

Dhruba Dasgupta, a research fellow at IIEST Shibpur, says while supporting the measures that these strategies will definitely make a positive impact in the long term. It will also encourage innovation for a better future. But in order to protect the Planet, more international cooperation is needed to replicate any gold standards that the United Kingdom might set and there should be communications among the countries.

But still, there are two things that are missing. First is the emphasis on encouraging the development of technological innovations by young school-goers, and second is developing a code of ethics by the school stakeholders, parents, teachers, and children.

She also said that for implementing this model in the schools of India, first it is needed to tweak the educational priorities quite a bit before putting in place a meaningful education system and strategies regarding climatic changes. First of all, the most important thing is to reduce rote learning and free up more time for young learners to learn from their surroundings and biodiversity.