Combating the Climate Crisis through Rights-Based, Non-Formal Trainings

BACKGROUND

After the United Nations General Assembly declared that access to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment is a universal human right; the Environment and Climate Change Course, which was added to the National Education curriculum in Turkey, has been taught as an elective course in secondary schools since the 2022-2023 academic year. In this course, which will not be taught only in the classroom environment, teachers are expected to guide the processes of discovery, questioning, argumentation, awareness raising, taking responsibility, and designing products. Considering that climate change is a dynamic subject that constantly improves itself with new information, teachers should guide students by constantly following current problems and solutions.

PROJECT GOALS

• The content of the "Environmental Education and Climate Change" elective course in the MoNE secondary school curriculum will be analyzed and a current situation report will be prepared.
• In line with the report, a training content supporting the existing elective course will be prepared.
• Three training sessions will be conducted with a total of 120 teachers and teacher candidates.
• The materials generated through the project will be distributed to a total of approximately 500 students/teachers.
• A monitoring and evaluation report will be prepared.

PROJECT RESULTS

• A focus group study was conducted with 35 students at Samsun Canikli Middle School to determine the needs of the course.
• At the Advisory Board Meeting in March 2024, it was decided to enrich the course with local examples and add content on inequalities of opportunity.
• A teacher network consisting of 77 teachers was established to teach the Environmental Education and Climate Change course; 33 teachers actively implemented the course.
• Istanbul was selected as the pilot province and three trainings were organized, one of which was face-to-face; 11 teachers participated in face-to-face training and 24 teachers participated in online training.
• 9 training materials were developed to support the course.
• Collaboration was established with 4 NGOs to understand climate-based inequalities for women, youth and the disabled.