Environment Protection: Curriculum

(asked on 24th April 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of strengthening the provision of environmental education in the curriculum.


Answered by
Nick Gibb Portrait
Nick Gibb
This question was answered on 29th April 2019

It is important that children are taught about the environment, and there is already a good level of content about this in both the geography and science curricula and qualifications. This begins in year one of primary school where pupils are encouraged to explore their local environment to identify the many different plants, including trees, and find out about animals in their habitat.

Other topics in the primary curriculum include how weather changes across the four seasons and looking at how environments can change as a result of human actions. In secondary school science pupils are taught about how changes in the environment affect different species, the importance of maintaining biodiversity and the production of carbon dioxide by human activity, and the effect this has on the climate. This is expanded on in GCSE science, where pupils will consider the evidence for additional anthropogenic causes of climate change. As part of GCSE geography pupils will look at the causes, consequences of and responses to extreme weather conditions and natural weather hazards.

The Department is also funding the Children and Nature Programme, a £10 million programme that aims to support children from disadvantaged backgrounds to have better access to the natural environment. This includes studying about nature and how to care for the natural environment.

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