PROJECTS
Powering Youth Environmental Literacy Through Networked Learning: Youth Deliberation for Energy Justice in Canada
Call for teachers!
Are you a teacher of any subject for grades 9 to 12? Are you interested in including climate change in your classroom discussions? Would you like to collaborate with teachers nationally?
New educational frameworks are needed to address compounding inequities and bring about the emissions reductions imperative to addressing climate change in Canada. Energy transition is not a matter of merely replacing oil with solar, wind, or geothermal. Instead, it demands the complete reinvention of daily-lived reality. The transition underway is not just an energy transition but a transformation in how we view the world and our responsibilities to it: less extractive and more socially just.
At the same time, energy is a political topic with uneven impacts and responses across Canada. Further, the oil industry is developing petro-pedagogies that hinder the environmental learning necessary for change.
In this context, it is crucial that education systems in Canada provide students with the opportunity to learn about the social and cultural elements of energy transition and to practice democratic responses across diverse contexts and experiences.
This project will develop new educational frameworks to address climate change in Canada, engaging 26 schools across every province and territory. Using a digitally networked national classroom, an interdisciplinary leadership team is partnering with 780 youth and their teachers to:
- Understand what young people already know about climate change and energy transition
- Map students’ understandings and experiences of climate crisis, as well as how they understand their roles in the future
- Discover teachers’ experiences with climate and energy education across diverse communities
- Make policy recommendations for education that target provincial education systems and teacher education
- Co-create teaching materials on energy and climate literacy that resonate with communities across Canada—including those closely tied to fossil fuel industries
Energy transition, as an important climate act, is not just about switching energy sources or systems. The transition underway is a social transformation. We need to change how we live, work, and understand the world and our responsibility to it. We need to focus on connection and social justice instead of only extraction of resources. Every decision is a climate decision, and students need to help co-construct educational models for new ways of decision-making to see the problems and the potential solutions in new ways.
