Question reference: S6W-20899
- Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
- Date lodged: 29 August 2023
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Current status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 27 September 2023
Question
To ask the Scottish Government what it has done to support schools in teaching about the climate emergency.
Answer
In Scotland, the climate emergency is taught through the cross curricular entitlement of Learning for Sustainability (LfS). LfS has been a feature of Curriculum for Excellence since 2012 and has gained international interest and recognition, with other countries looking at our concept of LfS as a model.
The Scottish Government published a refreshed LfS action plan in June 2023, which sets a new ambitious aim for all learning settings to become Sustainable Learning Settings by 2030, and clearly teaching children and young people about the climate emergency is an important aspect of this.
The plan contains a significant number of new actions to further support the teaching and learning of LfS. These include the development of a new accessible LfS portal where teachers and educators will be able to find online practical advice, tools and support in one place; the creation of new LfS qualifications and pathways; and the development of a single national approach to LfS within Initial Teacher Education.
This builds on a significant amount of work already underway. For example Education Scotland provides a wide range of advice, resources and support to schools in relation to climate and sustainability education, through their National Improvement Hub, including the Learning for Sustainability Self-Evaluation Framework, Countdown to COP26 resources, Weather and Climate Change video series and a Climate Change Wakelet, a tool for sharing resources.
The Scottish Government also funds Keep Scotland Beautiful to deliver the Climate Action Schools programme. In 2022-23 a total of 1,694 schools took part in the programme which aims to increase climate change awareness, enable young people to have a voice and take action on issues that matter to them, and embed LfS across Scotland.