TiE INTRODUCING OUR WORK
TRANSFORM-iN EDUCATION explores what students need from their education in order to address the many uncertainties in their lives. Our work support students and teachers to be uncertain together on both core curricular and wider issues. This is about creating spaces - small or big - in the school day to engage with an issue where the teacher does not the answer in advance, but students and teacher explore something to see what new things might be discovered.
Students face much uncertainty in their lives, where there are not clear answers, and so doing so alongside a supportive teacher, offers the opportunity to stick with the challenge of working through something, which might be difficult but also interesting. In education contexts, students of all ages can be supported to engage with uncertainty in the following ways:
You can read more about the four key pillars (theory, research, policy, practice) that inform our work on uncertainty in education. We have have described the key themes and the educational benefits to this approach. We also have a short guide for teachers and for students, and a portfolio of activity examples . A key focus of our work is engaging with the uncertainty of climate change and biodiversity loss, in order to foster student hope and the capacity to act in the world as it is now. You can read more below on this specific area of our work. |
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Sustainability Uncertainty
The unpredictability and precarity of the crisis of climate change and biodiversity loss is one key pressing concern for children and young people. A key focus of our work is exploring with schools how we might take seriously children and young people's urgent concerns, as illustrated by 9-year-old Sophie, who asked her teacher: Is it true we've only got ten years to save the planet? (cited in our research paper).
Working with the uncertainty of how to respond to climate change and biodiversity loss is important to prepare students to find out how they might act, with the support of teachers/educators, in ways that foster hope about living in the world as-it-is now. This is about doing more than simply seeing schooling as creating a future generation of scientists, policy-makers and artists who can figure out what to do.
While there exists little scientific doubt that planet temperatures are rising, huge uncertainty remains. Climate modelling cannot specific where, when and how such change will manifest. There is no one 'right' course of action for any individual or community to respond to the threats. It remains unclear whether humanity will galvanises the required urgent action to mitigate and adapt to such change; and exactly what such change might be within any given community.
For example, the need to reduce plastics is complex and requires a degree of nuance, rather than simply asserting the importance of ‘banning all plastic’. Teachers must require students to verify what can be known and whether what is proposed is desirable for themselves, others and the nonhuman world.
Sharing what is already known helps to ensure student have the relevant knowledge about climate change and other sustainability-related knowledge/skills. Uncertainty is integral to all subjects, including science, which includes observational uncertainty, modelling and pushing at the boundaries of what is already known. Topics that invite doubt and uncertainty include, for example:
The unpredictability and precarity of the crisis of climate change and biodiversity loss is one key pressing concern for children and young people. A key focus of our work is exploring with schools how we might take seriously children and young people's urgent concerns, as illustrated by 9-year-old Sophie, who asked her teacher: Is it true we've only got ten years to save the planet? (cited in our research paper).
Working with the uncertainty of how to respond to climate change and biodiversity loss is important to prepare students to find out how they might act, with the support of teachers/educators, in ways that foster hope about living in the world as-it-is now. This is about doing more than simply seeing schooling as creating a future generation of scientists, policy-makers and artists who can figure out what to do.
While there exists little scientific doubt that planet temperatures are rising, huge uncertainty remains. Climate modelling cannot specific where, when and how such change will manifest. There is no one 'right' course of action for any individual or community to respond to the threats. It remains unclear whether humanity will galvanises the required urgent action to mitigate and adapt to such change; and exactly what such change might be within any given community.
For example, the need to reduce plastics is complex and requires a degree of nuance, rather than simply asserting the importance of ‘banning all plastic’. Teachers must require students to verify what can be known and whether what is proposed is desirable for themselves, others and the nonhuman world.
Sharing what is already known helps to ensure student have the relevant knowledge about climate change and other sustainability-related knowledge/skills. Uncertainty is integral to all subjects, including science, which includes observational uncertainty, modelling and pushing at the boundaries of what is already known. Topics that invite doubt and uncertainty include, for example:
- Is humankind threatened with extinction?
- Can technical solutions address climate change?
- Is capitalism inherently unsustainable?
At the relaxing of England's lockdown this spring, many people enjoyed the hottest recorded March temperatures for over fifty years (Met Office, 2021). However, with the sun comes a long shadow: alerting us to the cold reality of climate change. This is a concern for children, as well as adults, prompting questions about what they and others might do. (See our Aspe Bulletin article for teachers) |
A new forest food garden course at the University of Sussex fosters student agency to embrace uncertainty, so that they might be(come) responsive to human-induced climate change and biodiversity loss . . . [it] involves working with the land and communities – within and beyond the university – emphasising an interrelationship between the natural world and collective human action for fostering community resilience. It necessarily embraces the uncertainty inherent in such a complex, contingent and indeterminate endeavour. (See our BERA blog)