What could the future of environmental learning look like?

Everyone has the right to learn about the environment, to understand how they can think and live more sustainably for a healthy, prosperous future.

However, currently the environmental education system is significantly limited because it’s not inclusive or accessible to all, and there are unspoken truths of climate hypocrisy. Ultimately, this can restrict who, and how many of us, are engaged in the environment, and it could delay our ability to reach net-zero.  

It is important to note that environmental learning does not just apply to educational institutions or curriculums. Whether you are a sustainable business or environmental charity providing resources, a student actively studying these subjects, or a communicator sharing different environmental experiences through the power of storytelling, we can all play a part in taking action to make environmental learning more effective. 

So, in this post, through using the key example of field trips, we will be discussing both the current challenges embedded in the education system as well as the possible opportunities to reimagine the future of environmental learning.

Firstly, the way in which we learn about the environment may not be as sustainable as you may expect. 

Across the education sector, field trips act as the cornerstone of many environmental subjects, such as Geography. The carbon emissions associated with these field trips have rarely been managed and have the potential to play a considerable role within the wider carbon footprints of educational institutions. One study found that, in higher education, one of the largest sources of travel emissions came from student fieldtrips (Hoolohan et al. 2021), with other significant sources from wider research and staff conference travel. A general trend has also shown that the number of exotic field trips abroad have increased as they can be seen as a competitive advantage or recruitment tool to attract more students to a course (LSE, 2019); indicating that this challenge may worsen, despite the fact that more and more Universities are declaring ‘climate emergencies’. 

However, since fieldtrips globally were cancelled or postponed over the recent years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it has given rise to research opportunities to assess the role and application of digital learning. Specially, Earth Minutes partnered with Durham University to trial a Digital Fieldtrip Experience (DFE), ‘Project RENU’, which can be defined as a web platform using a mixed-media approach (i.e. cinematography, 360-video and article resources) to explore an immersive digital environment. In summary, this project found that although DFEs should never be used to replace all fieldtrips, when they are provided as an optional opportunity or alongside local-based trips, they can provide enhanced experiences that you cannot get in-person and there are significant carbon footprint reductions.  

Within the same study (Project RENU Report, 2022), a collaborative survey with Students Organising for Sustainability (2022) found that out of the 7,761 UK students who took part, only 24% said they take into account the environmental impact of fieldtrips when deciding whether to participate. Crucially, this highlights the lack of conversation behind how, and why, we should learn about the environment in a fundamentally sustainable way. Without engaging people in this, there is the risk of having the indirect social impact of normalising negative environmental behaviours, such as normalising flying as a form of transport (Flight Free UK, 2019). So, redesigning the way in which we learn about the environment could ensure that we encourage more sustainable lifestyles in the long term, alongside driving climate action through carbon footprint reductions.

Another challenge to address is the physical and financial accessibility of environmental learning, as well as its overall inclusivity. 

Over the last few years, studies have continued to expose how the common activities associated with environmentally-focussed subjects, from fieldtrips, fieldwork and forest school activities, do not accommodate those with physical disabilities (Stainfield et al., 2010; Çaliskan, 2011). Whilst globally, there are 1 billion people living with some form of disability making up 15% of the global population (The World Bank, 2021), so this inevitably prevents a significant proportion of society from participating in environmental learning. Moreover, people can also be excluded by the cost of these activities, such as the costs of equipment and travel (Stokes et al., 2012), which has unfortunately led to it being widely recognised that the subject of Geography tends to attract fewer young people from financially disadvantaged backgrounds (Dorling, 2020). 

Importantly, alongside the need to make environmental learning more accessible, we need to make it inclusive regardless of race or gender. A study by Black Geographers (2021) found that in 2018 only 1.7% of all enrolling Undergraduate Geography students in the UK identified as Black, and specifically across Oxbridge less than 3 Black students were admitted to study geography. This will inevitably have a detrimental societal and environmental impact because through restricting the accessibility and inclusivity of environmental learning, it will go on to decrease the overall diversity and overall participation in the sustainably sector as a whole. 

Fundamentally, we cannot make effective environmental decisions or drive impacting environmental change without a diverse range of people, bringing a board range of ideas and experiences. So, environmental learning must be re-designed with those marginalised at the forefront because environmental learning should be available to all.

Lastly, the environment relates to anybody and everybody. As humans, we must sustain the planet to sustain ourselves. 

However, particularly within the education sector, the subject of the environment is often incidentally labelled as more of an ‘interest’. It could be argued that this is down to the way environmental topics have historically been restricted to Geography- and Science -based subjects only. This results in an element of exclusivity, causing people to feel that environmental topics may not be as relevant to them. This could go on to impact the way people interact or perceive the environment throughout the rest of their lives. 

This has been reinforced by a recent survey by Teach the Future (2022), who asked 4,690 secondary teachers across the UK about how climate change has been embedded within different subjects. As a result, only 7% of teachers found that this was happening within Maths, 17% for English, 19% for Art & D&T, 27% for languages, 28% for History and 45% for Religious Studies. With this, to fully embed climate change within the curriculum, we need all teachers to be trained to talk about the climate crisis in a way that’s relevant to their subject and their students’ lives (Teach the Future, 2021). For example, through indirectly promoting and encouraging positive environmental behaviours and awareness, such as using climate change extracts in English. 

Ultimately, for environmental learning to have the greatest impact, we must make sure that environmental education exceeds the boundaries of Geography and Science because everyone has the right to be provided with the sufficient tools to live and think more sustainably.

To make environmental learning more effective, field trips are definitely not the sole challenge or solution, but they can be an important place to start. Beyond field trips, whether you are an individual, school or university, business or charity, we can all take steps to drive the future of environmental learning: 

• Be a part of the discussion and learn more – here are a few helpful resources: 
  • • Teach The Future (@teachthefuture) – ‘Teaching The Future’ (2022): here
    • SOS-UK (@sosuk_charity) – ‘Sustainability Skills Survey’ (2022): here
    • Black Geographers, (@blackgeographers) – ‘Participation of Black Students in Geography’ (2021): here
    • Wild Ability (@wildability_)
    • Earth Minutes (@earthminutesuk) – ‘Project RENU: Field trips For Future’ (2022): here
• Volunteer or start a campaign – join SOS-UK and Teach The Future!
• Design more sustainable and inclusive learning tools, like Digital Field trip Experiences, with Earth Minutes. Get in touch to find out more: contact@earthminutes.co.uk
• Take control of the carbon footprint behind your environmental research, lesson or field trip.
  • • Sustainable Travel – Search for the most sustainable route via RouteZero: here
    • Digital Sustainability – Learn about digital carbon emissions and sustainable web design; here. Estimate the carbon footprint of your webpage: here
    • Carbon Offsetting – Minimise your carbon emissions from source and offset where carbon emissions cannot be avoided: Ecologi, of course!
• Let’s engage more people in the environment, to push beyond the boundaries of Geography & Science!
  • • Take a Climate Course with AimHi: here
    • Need learning resources? Go to the Earth Minutes YouTube channel: here

Black Geographers (2020). Participation of Black Students in Geography. Found at: https://www.blackgeographers.com/pages/black-students-in-geography

Çaliskan, O. (2011) Virtual field trips in education of earth and environmental sciences. Procedia – Social and Behavioural Sciences, 15, 3239-3243.

Dorling, D. (2020) Geography and the Shifting Ratios of Inequality – University, A levels and GCSEs in 2020. Found at: https://www.dannydorling.org/?p=7945

Earth Minutes (2022) Project RENU – Fieldtrips For Future. Edited by Askew, E. Available online at: www.earthminutes.co.uk/projectrenureport

Flight Free UK (2019) “I refused to fly for my university field trip”: MSc student Abi Whitefield refused to go on her University field trip, despite it being a compulsory part of her course. Found at: https://flightfree.co.uk/post/i-refused-to-fly-for-my-university-field-trip/

Hoolohan, C., C. McLachlan, C. Jones, A. Larkin, C. Birch, S. Mander, and J. Broderick. 2021. Responding to the climate emergency: How are UK universities establishing sustainable workplace routines for flying and food? Climate Policy 21 (7):853–67. doi: 10.1080/14693062.2021.1881426.

LSE (2019) Rethinking Field trips. Found at: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducation/2019/09/16/rethinking-field-trips/

Stainfield, J. et al. (2010) International Virtual Field Trips: a new direction? Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 21 (2), 255-262.

Stokes A. et al. (2012). Enabling remote access to fieldwork: Gaining insight into the pedagogic effectiveness of ‘direct’ and ‘remote’ field activities. Journal of Geography in Higher Education. 36 (2). 197–222.

Teach the Future (2022) Teaching the Future: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DYNmcsQ5cM9iKdcjNL4riRGaK75Za2Ac/view

Teach the Future (2021) Teaching the Future. Found at: https://www.teachthefuture.uk/teacher-research

The World Bank (2021). Disability Inclusion. Found at: https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/disability#1