The future generations will feel the impacts of global climate change more than any other generation before, yet they are not receiving adequate education on the subject.

[Join me in my discussion on why it is important to raise an environmentally conscious generation and how we can take steps in the right direction.]

When I decided to move across the country to pursue higher education in environmental studies a friend of my mothers congratulated her saying “We raise adults, not children”. This puzzled me. From the perspective of a naive 18 year old I thought the goal of parenting was to maintain a child’s innocence for as long as possible. I figured sheltering children from the cruelty of the outside world was best for them. Now in my less naive 21 year old brain, I realize the truth in this statement. I recently landed a job as a full-time substitute teacher in a kindergarten through eighth grade montessori school acting as a placeholder for high-risk teachers. Educators hold an important role in the lives of children. They are responsible for teaching the typical subjects that come to mind when you think of schooling, but they also guide children in how to become socially responsible. As our environment continues to change, I believe it is essential for children to receive an education on our changing environment and the ways in which they could be affected. 

A year of watching kindergarteners ask to bring their laptops to recess really sparked my interest in how the children growing up in this age of New Media and Information are connecting to and receiving the intrinsic gifts of nature. Turns out, they aren’t. I recently took a survey from children ages 10-14 on their exposure to nature versus their exposure to media and made an attempt to connect the dots on how this affects their environmental literacy. The results were shocking. The majority, around 85% of children, claimed that they participate in around 10 hours of screen time per day, which is vastly greater than the 1-2 hours of daily outdoor time ~90% of children reported. Some even reported not going outside at all and not even feeling the need to. I talked amongst other teachers on how they believe all this screentime is affecting children and received comments such as “they are incapable of holding eye contact” “there is in an increase in symptoms and probably undiagnosed cases of ADHD” “impatience when there isn’t instant gratification”, all things any parent should hope to avoid when raising their children. 

All of this screen time and alienation from the outside world is also affecting an entire generation’s environmental literacy. Spending time outdoors is essential to cognitive development and mental health, especially at a young age as well as being essential to receiving a proper environmental education. There is no direct place for environmental education in the American school system, therefore leaving it up to the school whether it should and can be included in their curriculum. The problems with this system should be obvious. Schools with adequate resources to provide their students with a proper environmental education are typically suburban schools with majority white children, much like the one I work at where 98% of children responded “no” to my question “do you feel you are receiving an adequate education on our changing climate?”. So, if the schools with proper funding and resources are still not providing an efficient environmental education, can you imagine what poorer, inner-city schools are capable of providing their students with? 

Bridging the gap between inner-city and suburban schools is a layered issue that includes topics such as environmental racism, red-lining, and other socioeconomic factors that have plagued our country for generations but one way of closing in on these problems would be to raise environmentally aware adults. One aspect of environmental racism is that inner-city and low-income areas that are predominately POC communities have significantly less access to green spaces or city parks. If our government cannot listen to the cries of adults, maybe they will cater to the needs of children. Providing inner-city schools, especially, with school gardens would be an excellent way to allow children to spend time in nature and be exposed to the environment. These gardens can serve multiple purposes, such as an education tool for teachers to utilise to educate youths on how our environment is interconnected (an essential part of understanding how small changes in our climate/environment have monumental impacts), or as a resource for garden to table school lunches providing fresh ingredients and vital nutrients to school lunches. Gardens could remain open to the children after school for parents and other members of the community to spend time in the natural environment. 

Although the majority of the children responded they do not feel that they are receiving an adequate education of our changing climate, the majority also responded they know their future will be impacted by climate change. They are uncertain as to how they will be affected however. To me, this seems like sending untrained soldiers into war. For the time being, unfortunately fossil fuels will continue to be burned as if there are no consequences, our forest will continue to be slashed down like they aren’t our lifeline, glaciers will continue to melt and species will continue to disappear. Future generations have an inalienable right to know how they will be impacted by the complacency of those before them. The future generations need to know they can and should hold large corporations accountable, they deserve to have an adequate education on environmental policy and advocacy so that they can petition our government. 

Environmental education is key to creating an environmentally conscious generation. It is an unalienable right of the future generation to be educated on the fundamentals of our changing environment and how they should respond to it. Schools should implement strict environmental education curriculums and consider adding school gardens or green spaces on campus to use as an education tool or to simply allow students the opportunity to immerse themselves in nature. The intrinsic value of natural environments can be extremely beneficial to growing minds, in order to raise an ecological aware generation the intrinsic value of nature must be made available to them.