September marks more than the beginning of another school year. It offers educators, families, and communities an opportunity to reconsider what children need to learn in a rapidly changing world. Students require strong academic foundations, but they also need practical skills, environmental awareness, emotional intelligence, creativity, and the confidence to solve real problems.
Climate change is already affecting education. In 2024, extreme climate events disrupted the schooling of at least 242 million students across 85 countries and territories. Heatwaves, floods, droughts, tropical cyclones, and storms interrupted learning for approximately 1 in 7 students worldwide according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). These figures demonstrate that climate change is not only an environmental issue. It is also an educational, social, and humanitarian challenge.
Hands-on learning allows students to move beyond simply reading about sustainability. They can grow food, observe ecosystems, measure energy consumption, study water quality, design environmental solutions, and examine how their everyday decisions affect their communities. Through these experiences, environmental education becomes practical, memorable, and personally meaningful.
The urgent need for stronger climate education
Climate change is increasingly present in public conversations, but it is still not adequately represented in many school curricula.
An analysis of curriculum content across 76 countries resulted in an average of 50% of the maximum possible score for integrating general environmental and sustainability subjects. Digging deeper, the average score for climate change content was only 21% for climate change content and 12% for biodiversity content (Global Education Monitoring Report Team & Monitoring and Evaluating Climate Communication and Education Project, 2024).
Earlier UNESCO research also found that only 53% of national curricula examined made any reference to climate change. When climate change was included, it was often given limited attention. Fewer than 40% of surveyed teachers felt confident teaching about the severity of climate change, and approximately 1 in 3 felt they could explain its local and regional effects (UNESCO, 2021).
These statistics show the gap in knowledge and attention between the climate events impacting our world and the education students are receiving about it.
What makes sustainable schools different?
A sustainable school is more than a school with a recycling program. It is a learning environment where sustainability influences all aspects of a school, including teaching, operations, leadership, infrastructure, and community relationships.
UNESCO’s Green School Quality Standard identifies 4 areas schools should address: governance, facilities and operations, teaching and learning, and community engagement. This comprehensive model recognizes that schools should demonstrate the values they teach.
For example, students learning about water conservation should be able to investigate how their school uses water. A lesson about renewable energy can become more meaningful when students monitor solar energy production or compare different energy sources. Food waste education can be connected to composting, gardening, nutrition, and school meal programs.
Under this model, school facilities become places for practical applications of concepts. Gardens, kitchens, renewable energy systems, composting areas, aquaponics systems, and outdoor spaces can become living classrooms.
When sustainability is made visible everywhere in the school, children can understand that environmental responsibility is not limited to one subject. It is part of science, technology, food, health, economics, leadership, and everyday life.
The educational value of outdoor learning
In education, the outdoors is sometimes seen as optional or just a recess break between classes. Research suggests that it can be a valuable place to teach students when it is intentionally connected to curriculum goals.
Mann et al. (2022) conducted a systematic review of 147 original studies involving school aged children. The learning environments included school gardens, outdoor curriculum lessons, field trips, and adventure education programs.
The researchers reported benefits that included greater student engagement, increased ownership of learning, improved social and collaborative skills, positive changes in self concept, and some evidence of academic improvement. The review concluded that nature-based outdoor learning can provide measurable academic, social, and emotional benefits.
Outdoor learning can also support multiple subjects at the same time. Students can use mathematics to measure garden beds, science to study soil and biodiversity, writing to document observations, technology to monitor environmental conditions, and communication skills to present their findings.
These activities do not replace classroom learning. They give students an opportunity to apply it.
Food security education from seeds to the community
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations recommends school garden programs that actively involve students in observing, experimenting, monitoring, recording, reviewing, and discussing their work.
This model encourages students to participate in planning, carrying out, evaluating, and communicating garden projects. This develops knowledge as well as responsibility, decision making, teamwork, and communication skills (FAO, 2010).
Garden-based learning can also include nutrition, food preparation, environmental awareness, budgeting, entrepreneurship, and market research. FAO recommends involving families, local farmers, community experts, educators, and other school partners so that the garden becomes a shared learning space (FAO, 2010).
From environmental knowledge to green leadership
Future green leaders don’t come from only learning to memorize facts. Leadership requires initiative, collaboration, communication, critical thinking, empathy, and the ability to respond effectively when an idea does not work as expected.
Teachers are essential to this process. Educators need training, planning time, materials, and institutional support to use outdoor environments and practical projects effectively. Mann et al. (2022) specifically recommend stronger preparation for teachers who use natural settings as learning environments.
Investing in green infrastructure without investing in teachers would leave the work incomplete. Sustainable education requires both appropriate spaces and educators who know how to connect those spaces to meaningful learning.
Why investment in green education matters
The need for climate education is growing, but investment remains limited. UNICEF reported that only 8% of countries surveyed provided climate education to at least 70% of children while also offering professional development opportunities for teachers. Only 7% reported climate investments in the education sector (UNICEF, 2024).
These numbers reveal a significant gap between the scale of the climate crisis and the resources available to prepare children for it.
Donations to green education can help close this gap by supporting sustainable learning spaces, practical curriculum development, educational materials, teacher resources, food growing projects, renewable energy education, and environmental technology.
Supporting green education is not simply an investment in buildings. It is an investment in children who will need to understand and address complex environmental challenges throughout their lives.
A September invitation to turn learning into action
A new school year is a chance to imagine what education can become.
A school can begin with one garden bed, one outdoor science lesson, one composting project, or one student led energy investigation. Over time, these experiences can connect with the curriculum, school operations, and community participation.
At Green Schools Green Future, the larger vision is to create sustainable schools where children can learn about environmental responsibility by practising it. Students can develop academic knowledge while learning to grow food, care for natural systems, use green technologies, collaborate with others, and lead meaningful projects.
Help GSGF build the future of green education
Every child deserves an education that prepares them not only to succeed in the world, but also to care for it.
Your donation can help Green Schools Green Future work toward building sustainable schools, expanding practical environmental education, and giving children opportunities to become informed and confident green leaders.
Even a small contribution can help move this vision forward. Donations support GSGF’s campaign to build its first green school and create learning environments that connect education, sustainability, food security, innovation, and leadership.
Donate today and help us plant the seeds of a greener future:
If you are unable to donate, you can still support the mission by sharing this article, introducing GSGF to potential partners, and inviting others to learn about the importance of sustainable education.
Together, we can build schools that prepare children to become the problem solvers, innovators, and environmental leaders our future needs.
References
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2010). Setting up and running a school garden: Teaching toolkit. https://www.fao.org/4/i1118e/I1118E01.html
Global Education Monitoring Report Team, & Monitoring and Evaluating Climate Communication and Education Project. (2024). Education and climate change: Learning to act for people and planet. UNESCO. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000389801
Mann, J., Gray, T., Truong, S., Brymer, E., Passy, R., Ho, S., Sahlberg, P., Ward, K., Bentsen, P., Curry, C., & Cowper, R. (2022). Getting out of the classroom and into nature: A systematic review of nature specific outdoor learning on school children’s learning and development. Frontiers in Public Health, 10, 877058. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.877058
United Nations Children’s Fund. (2024). Children and youth call for access to quality climate education. https://www.unicef.org/blog/children-and-youth-call-access-quality-climate-education
United Nations Children’s Fund. (2025). Learning interrupted: Global snapshot of climate related school disruptions in 2024. https://www.unicef.org/reports/learning-interrupted-global-snapshot-2024
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. (2021). Only half of the national curricula in the world have a reference to climate change, UNESCO warns. https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/only-half-national-curricula-world-have-reference-climate-change-unesco-warns
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. (2024a). Greening curriculum guidance: Teaching and learning for climate action. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000390022
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. (2024b). Green school quality standard: Greening every learning environment. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000390028
