We recently recorded Ewan and Fallon, two of our Child Human Rights Defenders, in their preparation for the Scottish Government Executive Team Takeover 2025. We’ve transcribed the recordings and shared below are the children’s views on Climate Crisis Education.
We are Child Human Rights Defenders. We are taking an issue to the Executive Team meeting to share it; Climate Crisis Education. This is important, children are anxious because they’re not getting the right education about climate change.
To get to this point we have been on a journey to help us find out about the issue. This has three main parts. We went and spoke to children through a survey. The three main issues from the survey were the climate crisis, vaping and mental health and bullying. And then we did class missions to get more details.
We were also part of the Learning for Sustainability project; there have been three phases of that. We have been in the third phase, and that’s the most recent phase. We have learnt about a few main things that can help us be better people, which are dignity, people, culture, spaces and learning.
As part of Climate Crisis Education, we would like three things. These are the key issues.
The first is we would like to improve government communication with children in Scotland because they don’t know enough about what is actually going on in Scotland for the climate crisis.
Our second key message is positive climate education. Not all children are getting equal climate education. We would like to take part in real events with real people, to improve climate education for children, all over Scotland.
Lastly, children in Scotland would also like to be involved in learning about climate change, so that they can understand more about climate change, but it is also the adult’s responsibility to make this possible. Our key ask to you is to let us be involved in climate week, but we think this would be a great opportunity for children all over Scotland. Those that maybe don’t get the greatest climate education will have the chance to take part in fun activities and learn!
by the Child Human Rights Defenders