Belgium: A standard course on climate change will be made accessible to secondary schools in Flanders, Belgium starting in the next academic year in an effort to close the knowledge gap between education and science and raise young people’s awareness of environmental issues.
The four lesson plans, dubbed “Klimaatlink” (“Climate link” in Dutch), were created by researchers at the Global Change Ecology Center of the University of Antwerp, Belgium with the intention of educating the future generation and offering them answers to the present climate catastrophe.
Along with this, the curriculum was also developed in collaboration with teacher teams from various schools in response to the growing need for teaching on the topic, which Eric Struyf, manager of the Global Change Ecology Centre, has attempted to meet through Klimaatlink.
According to Arne Ven, one of the project’s directors, “we start with fundamental science and then proceed to more tangible solutions with reference to climate transition,” he went on to describe the substance of the courses.
He explained that this was done with a lot of practical theory in order to “concentrate on social and economic challenges.” For instance, by incorporating a variety of experiments in the packages, we allow students to monitor climate change in their local environments.
Furthermore, the long-term development of new packages in collaboration with business and non-governmental organisations is the goal.
