Simple ways to bring climate education into every classroom

Climate change disproportionately impacts young people, yet young people are systematically excluded from decision-making about the climate. Research has revealed that young people around the world, and in Australia, are experiencing increasing distress about the climate crisis and are feeling a burden of responsibility to solve a problem they did not create.  

While young people are experiencing high levels of climate anxiety, they remain proactive and optimistic about the future. They believe action is still possible and are calling for stronger leadership, greater transparency, and meaningful opportunities to shape climate-related decisions.

As a university, we have made a clear global commitment to climate action. Our signing of the Earth Day statement in 2025 reaffirms our responsibility to address climate issues through our educational offerings. 

Climate action is consistently our students’ top sustainability priority. As Western Sydney continues to become more climate-exposed, our students are acutely aware of the challenges facing their communities. Climate education equips learners with the knowledge, skills and values they need to understand and respond to climate change, helping them move from anxiety to action and preparing them for the future.

Embedding climate education

Education for Sustainability (EfS) offers us a powerful pedagogical approach for preparing students to address complex global challenges such as climate change. It aims to foster critical, reflective, creative and future-focused thinking; it supports understanding of systems and complexity; and it strengthens students’ values, worldviews and capacities for participation and partnership. 

• Spotlight guide: Higher education’s bumpy road to net zero
• Use art to cultivate business students’ understanding of climate change
• Traditional ecological knowledge can inspire students to take climate action

Effective climate education should engage cognitive, social and emotional learning, while also encouraging students to take informed action, regardless of whether you teach in the health, social sciences, design, business, engineering, or education disciplines. Learning experiences should be learner‑centred, place‑based, experiential and reflective, and, where appropriate, draw on Indigenous knowledge and perspectives. 

Here are six practical ways to integrate climate education into your classroom:

• Use climate story mapping: have students map a local place (for example, a river corridor, heat hotspot or transport hub) and reflect through a group discussion board or a reflective assessment task on the question, “What does climate change look and feel like here?” Visual methods, such as photovoice, which involves sharing insights and views through photographs, can increase young people’s sense of agency and optimism about climate change. 
• Use scenario‑based tasks and real climate data: draw on existing climate projections, datasets or local case studies to explore how your local area might respond to heatwaves, flooding, supply‑chain disruptions or biodiversity decline. Students can apply discipline‑specific analysis and problem‑solving to real‑world challenges. 
• Run a Climate Fresk activity: bring the interactive card‑based game into your tutorial with support from a trained facilitator (or become one yourself). It helps students unpack climate drivers, impacts and leverage points for action while strengthening foundational systems thinking. 
• Integrate Climate Writers: incorporate short writing tasks, like writing a letter to a politician, that connect climate issues with civic participation, advocacy and democratic processes, helping students articulate informed climate perspectives (or send students along to their workshops). 
• Run a political placard activity: turn climate-related emotions into powerful visual communication by encouraging students to create placards capturing the mental and emotional impacts of climate change. Young people’s climate placards are a powerful form of visual communication, political agency and evidence. These visuals can be shared on campus, on social media or at political events and protests.
• Incorporate field‑based learning: use campus or local community sites for hands‑on climate activities – from urban heat monitoring to waterway health assessments – to build real‑world awareness and experiential learning. 

Next steps for your teaching

1. Start small by integrating one climate‑focused learning activity this semester. Keep it positive by focusing on activities that foster agency and encourage localised climate-action. If you’re feeling more confident, identify a week, topic or assessment where climate provides a meaningful context or focus. 
2. Identify where climate-related issues already intersect with your field and choose an approach that fits naturally within your existing teaching. 
3. Partner with an expert. Reach out to colleagues at your institution researching climate or invite industry or community partners into your classroom to enrich learning. 
4. Model openness by sharing your own climate concerns or reflections to create a sense of safety and authenticity around the topic. 
5. Talk with your students. Ask what climate topics feel relevant to their discipline or future careers. Their insights often reveal simple, meaningful points for integration.  

Embedding climate education in your teaching is ultimately about empowering students to make sense of the world they are entering and to feel capable of facing their future. By integrating even small moments of climate-focused learning, we strengthen our students’ resilience, their sense of agency and their confidence and capacity to contribute to a more sustainable society. 

Brittany Vermeulen is a sustainability programme manager and Ümit Kennedy is the learning communications specialist in the office of the pro vice-chancellor (learning and teaching), both at Western Sydney University.

Western Sydney University’s learning and teaching guide:  EFS Guidance Document WSU.pdf

Research report: We Deserve To Live In A Thriving World: Child-Centred Indicators for Climate Change

Research report: Hope and Resilience: Young Australians’ reflections on hope in a complex world

Podcast: The Silent Majority  

Curriculum guide: Greening curriculum guidance: teaching and learning for climate action - UNESCO Digital Library   

Reading: “The Earth Is Dying, Bro” | M/C Journal