Addressing climate change denial in the classroom
The Impartiality Guidance issued by the DfE makes clear that climate change denial has no validity and teaching about climate change, the scientific facts and evidence behind it, does not constitute teaching about a political issue.
Schools do not need to present misinformation, such as claims that climate change is not occurring, to provide balance.
The Climate Schools Programme is designed so you can spend time teaching about the solutions instead of debating the existence of human-made climate change.
These arguments may arise anyway. Here, we give you some practical techniques to counter climate denial from a student.
Set up an open classroom
Try to avoid making judgemental comments about people, companies or countries that have high carbon footprints. Appeal to evidence instead.
For instance, it is true that China is currently a major producer of carbon dioxide emissions but over the last 200 years, the nation with the highest carbon footprint is easily the USA. Even today, the amount of carbon dioxide emitted per head is lower in China than in the USA.
The inoculation approach
Inoculation theory takes the concept of vaccination, where we are exposed to a weak form of a virus in order to build immunity to the real virus, and applies this theory to the field of knowledge. You can inoculate your students against climate misinformation by following this approach.
Inoculating requires two elements.
- it includes an explicit warning about the danger of being misled by misinformation
- you need to provide counterarguments explaining the flaws in that misinformation
The Climate Schools Programme English lesson on climate misinformation follows this approach.
Download the guide
Download the full guidance in a PDF document/PowerPoint to share with your colleagues. This includes examples of how to use the inoculation approach and further links to useful websites and documents that will help you address climate change denial in the classroom.
