Climate Education and Leadership Initiative

(as of July 2024)

The Problem / Challenge to be Solved

Climate change and environmental risks are the lived reality of today’s students, especially those in
disadvantaged communities, who disproportionately suffer the impacts of emission, extraction, and
environmental degradation. No longer a distant threat, climate change is already harming people's health and
livelihoods and exacerbating long-standing inequities around the world, with effects expected to worsen over
time. Indeed, climate change is not simply climate change anymore; it is ‘everything change’ (and ‘everywhere
change’), as we are facing an increasing unpredictability and instability of (geological) conditions.

While these problems are largely caused by human activities, they can–and must–also be solved by humans, and
there is no path to a better future without tackling climate change. Children and youth see climate change
affecting their world and future, which often leads to feelings of anxiety and helplessness. It’s crucial that we
support students’ resilience, agency and leadership so that they can pioneer the necessary solutions to the
climate crisis—now and throughout their lives—and climate education needs to be at the heart of that endeavor.

Yet, education systems around the world are not providing young people with the tools, mindsets, and skills
they’ll need to tackle climate change and to be resilient and equipped for navigating a climate-changed world, nor
with spaces to raise their voices on the issue. Climate change is barely reflected in school curricula and most
teachers around the world are not supported in / ready for climate education. Thus, in many places children and
youth are leading climate action despite, rather than because of, what’s happening in classrooms and schools. In
other words, education systems are, so far, fundamentally failing our children and youth on climate change.

Teach For All Climate Education and Leadership Initiative

We envision a future where all children are equipped with the tools, mindsets, and skills to collectively mitigate
the climate crisis, promote climate justice, and build resilience in the face of climate change. To realize this vision,
the Climate Education and Leadership Initiative aims to infuse climate education throughout the education
system by building a force of teacher, student and alumni leaders who foster climate mindedness, action and
resilience in rising generations, and by reorienting teaching and learning towards this purpose.

Our assessment, based on research and many discussions with network members (i.e., network partner staff,
alumni, teachers, and student leaders) and external partners, is that the global gap in climate and environmental
sustainability education is rooted in the wide absence of four vital elements:

1. Curriculum Space & Funding: Studies show vast gaps in curriculum space and funding for climate education.
Out of 100 countries surveyed by UNESCO in 2021, only 53 national curricula make reference to climate
change or environmental sustainability. And educational initiatives receive a negligible share of climate action
funding. The result is that schools and teachers face a very constrained context and must often use their
creativity or extra time to teach about climate change.
2. Agency for Collective Action: Climate change is a collective action problem, and we need collective
leadership—at all levels of the system—to tackle it. Education is vital for this purpose. This must include a
mindset shift away from the teacher as 'know-it-all’ and students as mere consumers of knowledge, towards a
concept of students and teachers as co-learners and collaborators (as reflected in our TACL framework).
3. Teacher Readiness: Most teachers do not feel confident, knowledgeable, or permitted to engage in climate
education (for example, see this UNESCO survey). Building teacher readiness requires teacher training
(including providing teachers with a space to reflect on themselves and their role as teachers) so they can
engage in a way that inspires and empowers students to become local problem solvers and change agents.
4. High-Quality, Contextualized Materials: There is no shortage of available climate education materials.
However, curation, indexing, contextualization of, and free, easy access to these materials are lacking.

To address this global gap, Teach For All’s Climate Education and Leadership work focuses on three key aspects:

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 I. Teach For All provides community, training and easy access to knowledge, tools and customizable resources,
to ensure our teachers are ready to engage students in climate education during their initial two years of
teaching, thus having an immediate positive impact and generating climate consciousness among, and driving
community-centered solutions and collective climate action led by, thousands of students and teachers.
II. Teach For All grows a force of inter-connected leaders who are innovating and leading from every level of
the education system and policy, and from outside the system as pioneers of climate change innovations and
initiatives, to impact whole schools and infuse climate education throughout the education system.
III. Teach For All elevates network voices and perspectives to foster a global movement towards climate
education at national and global levels.

This threefold focus on building in-school readiness while growing leadership at all levels and elevating voices
for advancing climate education translate into the following five functional priorities for our work:

1. Climate Education Community of Learning, Sharing and Acting: We build and facilitate community between
network staff, alumni, fellows, and student leaders involved in climate education and leadership, to learn
together, share and serve as our network’s action hub. The Community has 450+ members, growing fast.
● Connect network staff, alumni, student leaders and fellows, including through monthly Community calls,
monthly Community emails and regular Community workshops, to learn, share and act together.
● Bring together network partners to discuss common issues and opportunities for integrating climate
education into their programs/activities and connect them with the Climate Education Community.
● Engage with student leaders (e.g., from TFAll’s SLAC) on how to build collective climate leadership.
● Annually run the 6-month Climate Education Champions learning series to develop the capacity and
applied leadership of ~30-40 participants to be climate education champions. As part of the series, each
participant develops and pursues a Climate Education Leadership project for their own context.

2. Network Partner Leadership: We provide thought partnership and support to network partners for their
climate education projects and for integrating climate education into the organizational purpose/mission.
● Provide direct support through the Teach For All Climate Education & Leadership Fund, that includes
regular learning calls to build community for learning and growing together in climate education work.
● Provide spaces for collaboration (e.g., a workshopping circle for developing climate ed training
modules).
● Annually host one Climate Education Action Summit event that brings together both network partners
wanting to engage with climate education at organizational level and climate education champions from
a specific region, to connect / strengthen their relationships, further build their capacity & leadership by
learning from & with each other, and work in fixed Think Tank groups that each develop a climate
education product / resource for a network partner.

3. Curate/Build and Share Knowledge: We support interested network members in navigating, accessing and
customizing (to their learners’ context) the knowledge and tools to empower students and equip them with
the knowledge, skills, and mindsets to tackle, and build resilience in the face of, the climate crisis.
● Host and continuously expand the Climate Education Resource Hub, with high-quality climate change
learning and teaching resources that are easily accessible and customizable to different local contexts
(including a Contextualization Guide to help users adapt and customize existing climate resources).
● Offer a range of teacher trainings that (i) enable teachers to productively engage with climate change
and (ii) guide them to approaches & materials for teaching it (incl. guidance for customizing materials). To
be offered as online training and/or summer institute sessions delivered by network partner staff,
fellows or alumni (i.e., led by Climate Education Community members from/close to the local context).
● Develop a learning experience or other knowledge formats to build awareness on the “why” and “how”
of climate education and address particular network needs or gaps in existing knowledge/information.

4. Raise Awareness and Advocate Through the Global Conversation: We help network partners to raise
awareness and advocate for climate education by running online campaigns and elevating students’ and
teachers’ voices in the global discussion around climate change (e.g., in conferences or webinars).

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 ● Elevate stories that offer inspiring illustrations of concrete, tangible action and leadership on climate
education, via social media, written pieces, and by bringing the voices of teachers into global events
(for example, through the Teachers for the Planet program).
● Support network partners in advocacy for climate education funding or curriculum change.

5. Create and Catalyze Meaningful Partnerships: we leverage existing partnerships and build new ones on
climate education and leadership.
● Build or deepen partnerships with knowledge partners to connect network partners, students, fellows
and alumni to climate education resources, innovations and learning & speaking opportunities.
● Strengthen links with partners committed to supporting inclusive climate education and leadership (for
example, through co-leading the Room 4 group on advancing climate education for all students).

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Annex: Examples of Network Stories / Outreach on Climate Ed & Leadership

The need for high-quality, locally rooted climate education in all classrooms and schools is self-evident to most
people. Yet, while many organizations want to do something about it, the issue (of climate change – let alone of
climate education) often appears abstract, complex and/or daunting. Our network stories and concrete work
are a vital, compelling window into tangible action and leadership on climate education. They also allow
continuous direct feedback and learning from climate education classrooms across the globe. The following is an
overview of different network stories, celebrations, articles and posts we shared on social media and our
website:
● Edson (Teach For Zimbabwe fellow) & his student Tiyiso: story about the initiative “Learners in the Fight
Against Climate Change” (see story here; also see here for an inspiring article written by Tiyiso). This video
summarizes the work of Edson and the wider Teach For Zimbabwe community on scaling climate education
(note: Edson was also one of the four selected winners at the TeachersCOP event in 2022).
● Maha & Rabia (Teach For Pakistan fellows) and their student Abdullah: story about locally rooted student
leadership (see story here).
● Jose (Teach For Colombia alumnus) and his students: story about leadership to address pressing
community needs (see story here).
● Egoitz (Empieza Por Educar alumnus) and his students: story about using circular economy projects as
learning tools in schools, with an amazing impact that transcends much beyond the classroom/school (see
story here and here). He spoke as panelist at a EU conference session on School education for climate:
empowering students through climate and sustainability education (see the session recording here).
● Nikhil (Teach For India alumnus) and his students: story about students developing concrete sustainability
solutions, for example in transportation (see story here).
● Jens (Teach First Deutschland fellow) and his students: the CO2 backpack and moving beyond the
classroom to realize agency in climate solutions (see story here).
● Natalia (Empieza Por Educar alumna) speaking at a UNESCO-UNFCCC webinar on climate change
education and sharing rich lessons on how and what we must learn from indigenous knowledge (see here).
● Ahmad (Teach For Lebanon fellow) presented at the COP27 UNESCO side-event “Youth demand quality
climate education” on November 15. The session recording is available here.
● Esther and Koima (Teach For Kenya fellows): impressions from engaging their students in an informal
settlement of Nairobi in climate education (here) and information about the climate education teacher
training module they developed and piloted for Teach For Kenya (training schedule, slide deck, post).
Esther’s work in guiding both students and teachers towards climate action literacy is also captured here.
● Judith (Teach For Uganda fellow): story about setting up environmental clubs during her Fellowship and
training club members on democratic governance, climate change and waste management (here).
● Camila (Enseña Chile alumna): story about Corporacion Cultiva’s work on getting children and young people
involved in concrete actions that allow them to experience agency for environmental protection (here).
● Teach For Bulgaria: story about their rationale and concrete activities towards building a more
environmentally conscious generation of leaders (here).
● Teach For Lebanon: story about the Planet B group of fellows, who are leading a teacher training program,
the development of contextualized teaching resources, and concrete project implementation (here).
● Maïlys Reneaume (Le Choix de l'école alumna) presented at the ChangeNOW 2023 conference session on
“Education: Learning through changemaking” (main stage) (see session recording here and here for more).
● Five climate education champions from across our global network speaking at the Teachers for the Planet
program launch (recording here; January 2023); others speaking in various other sessions of the program.
● Five alumni profile videos about climate education champions from our global network. Each protagonist
utilizes storytelling to convey their deep motivation for this work, rooted in their personal stories:
○ Esther Gacigi
○ Egoitz Etxeandia
○ Ahmad El Baghdadi
○ Edson Dongo
○ Natalia Herrera
● In partnership with The Rockefeller Foundation, we celebrated Earth Week 2024 by sharing the beautiful

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 (written) stories of 4 climate educators and their students from across the Teach For All global network:
○ Esther (Kenya)
○ Mailys (France)
○ Jens (Germany)
○ Marina (Brazil)
○ (the editor’s note and overview for this story series can be found here)
● To celebrate Earth Week 2024, we also partnered with 5 Teach For All network partners to spotlight their
inspiring climate education initiatives (mostly supported through the CEL Fund) through short videos.
○ Teach For Bangladesh
○ Teach For Pakistan
○ Ensena Peru
○ Teach For Romania
○ Teach For Uganda

We are also elevating and distilling the stories and insights of climate educators from across the global network
through Teach For All outreach articles, events, calls, videos, and many other formats, as follows:
● Teach For All articles on
○ overall lessons and guiding principles for climate education & leadership (April 2022),
○ our responsibility to provide climate education in a climate-changed world (September 2022),
○ the learning that prioritizing climate education is a win-win, not a trade-off (January 2023), and
○ On the importance of locally rooted and globally informed climate education (April 2023)
● Teach For All Learning Forum on Putting Climate Education at the Heart of How We Build Student
Leadership (see the highlight reel here and the Key Insights document from the Forum here).
● Highlight reels from the global Climate Education Community monthly calls in March 2022 (theme: “How
do we best equip and prepare teachers to teach students on climate change?”) and June 2022 (theme:
“Teaching & learning about human-nature relationship and mutual care-taking”).
● Our network’s work was featured in major Arabic speaking outlets, including Al-Ahram newspaper (Egypt’s
most widely circulating daily newspaper) here and Annahar here, as well as in Wired Middle East here.
● Session “Climate Education and Leadership” at the Teach For All Global Conference in Kenya 2023.
● Teach For All Network Breakthrough 2023 presentations focused on Climate Education leadership
○ Proyecto Tierra Maestra: Re-centering in Nature for our Shared Future
○ Teach For Lebanon: The Transformative Power of Fellow Leadership
● 17 Rooms annual synthesis report, incl Teach For All’s co-lead of Room 4 on Climate Change and Education
● Teachers for the Planet online portal (co-led by Teach For All) and RewirEd Summit 2023 session to launch
the Teachers for the Planet portal and Teachers for the Planet Policy-Practice Dialogue session at COP28
● Teach For All Climate Education Resource Hub and Climate Education Resource Contextualization Guide.
● Guidance Document “Best Practices of Climate Education - Learning from Teachers and Classrooms across
Africa” (developed by the leadership group of the Pan-African Climate Education (PACE) network).
● Teach For All video on “Building Collective Action: Climate Education & Leadership at Teach For All”.
● Key Insights documents from the Climate Education & Leadership Fund Cycle 1 quarterly learning calls:
○ August 2023
○ November 2023
○ February 2024