A well operated by BlackPearl Resources on the Onion Lake Cree Nation. (YouTube/BlackPearl Resources)

By Glenn Hicks

talking climate change in the classroom

Saskatchewan leads nation in schools climate change curriculum

Aug 1, 2019 | 5:01 PM

A new study found Saskatchewan schools have the most comprehensive curriculum in the nation for teaching about climate change. It dispels an assumption that a province that is politically conservative and with strong ties to the fossil-fuel sector would not have strength in education about such an important national and global issue. Meanwhile, a Prince Albert consultant is crediting updated science curriculum and engagement by teachers for the success.

The study by Seth Wynes, a PhD student at the University of British Columbia, and Kimberly A. Nicholas from Lund University in Sweden, took a detailed look at the climate change curriculum offered in schools in every province and ranked them across six key areas: the foundational principles of climate change, the warming of the climate, human causes, that experts agree climate change is real, why the situation is dire, and how it can be fixed. The study authors gave a rating of zero to three in those categories and Saskatchewan came out on top. Wynes and Lund also interviewed the people who wrote the curriculum.

A graphic showing the rankings for the climate change curricula in each of Canada’s provinces and territories according to a recent study. (Seth Wynes and Kimberly Nicholas, PLOS ONE (2019), Figure by Emma Li Johansson.)

Saskatchewan performed well in five of the key areas and was the only province offering instruction that focused on the aspect that experts agree there is no debate and that climate change is real, significant and human caused.

As part of the introduction to the study Wynes writes:

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Unlike the Canadian public, the scientific community shows strong agreement on human-caused climate change and its increasingly harmful effects. In Canada, fostering responsible environmental citizenship by students on issues such as climate change is a goal stated in several important government documents.

Local educator reacts to study findings

In response to Saskatchewan’s good showing in the study, a local educational consultant credited the province’s Ministry of Education and the way teachers are embracing the discussion and facts around climate change.

“In recent years we’ve seen the Science 10 curriculum come out and that’s when we really saw hot controversial topics like climate change tackled within those curricula,” Patricia Bibby, a high school learning consultant with the Saskatchewan Rivers Public School Division (SRPSD) told paNOW. “We had the development of an Environmental Science course launched in 2016 and we also have an Earth Science course that was launched in 2018.”

Bibby said the SRPSD wanted to empower teachers to help students to be equipped with the necessary knowledge to be stewards of innovation in the world.

“Teachers are helping expose students to matters at home, but also using the resources available to them to critically analyze what they’re seeing on the internet [and from] people around the world to expose them to issues of climate change.”

Bibby said the future was in the hands of students and the educators’ goals were to give them the skills to become “the fuel for change in the future.”

An interesting finding in the Wynes and Nicholas study was that they had initially expected provinces that were politically conservative or had a larger fossil fuel industry would have less climate change coverage in the classroom. However, the study found:

Saskatchewan, which has the highest per capita GHG emissions (due to the presence of fossil fuel extractive industries) and the second highest support for the Conservative Party of Canada, had the most comprehensive coverage of climate change in curriculum documents.

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glenn.hicks@jpbg.ca

On Twitter:@princealbertnow