Episode 24 - Climate education with Ben Ballin

In this episode of the Oxfordshire Teacher Training podcast, Matthew Coatsworth sits down with education consultant and fellow of the UK National Association for Environmental Education Ben Ballin to explore climate education. In an inspiring interview, Ben talks about a message of hope and opportunity, gives many fantastic recommendations for how to tackle ‘difficult’ questions and where to find reliable and age-appropriate resources. Ben also shares some of the work he has been involved with, including developing the geography curriculum at Eynsham primary school. Keen listeners may remember Matthew discussing how the history curriculum was created at that school with Will Reeves back in episode 7.

Many of the resources Ben mentioned are linked below:

Reliable sources for information online

Oxfam https://www.oxfam.org.uk/oxfam-in-action/tackling-climate-change/ 

Tide Global Learning https://www.tidec.org/ 

Connecting Classrooms through Global Learning Programme https://connecting-classrooms.britishcouncil.org/ 

Intergovernmental panel on climate change https://www.ipcc.ch/

West Midlands Sustainable Schools Network https://westmidlandssustainableschoolsnetwork.com/

A new recommended book for children and adults

Small Gases, Big Effect: this is climate change by David Nelles and Christian Serrer

(published 25th March 2021)

Subject Associations

Geographical Association https://www.geography.org.uk/  

Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) https://www.rgs.org/ 

Sources to see what children would like to be taught about – edgier, with detectable bias

Teach the Future https://www.teachthefuture.uk/ 

Campaign Against Climate Change: Climate Change Education in Schools https://www.campaigncc.org/schoolresources

 Ashden Awards
 https://ashden.org/

 Wild Awake – Change the Story

https://www.wild-awake.org/change-the-story 

 
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