Climate, biodiversity and environmental sciences: what educational challenges for the ecological transition?

Session moderated by Stéphane Mallat.
Each 30' paper will be followed by a 10' discussion.

Abstract

Learning the knowledge, skills and attitudes associated with climate change and biodiversity loss is a major challenge for our education system. Yet it is a fundamental key to in-depth action towards a more resilient and environmentally-friendly way of living together. The challenge is to develop the capacity of educational teams, and therefore of students, to tackle these cross-cutting issues, combining a scientific culture, a culture of complexity and a culture of citizenship. Relying on scientific foundations, mobilizing disciplines ; promoting the broad, positive and systemic vision needed to train tomorrow's citizens ; avoiding the risk of dispersal between several disciplines, out-of-context actions and eco-anxiety ; proposing guides and methods to enable students and teachers to distinguish between facts, opinions and beliefs, and between the respective roles of values and knowledge, when it comes to the major issues facing society today ; implementing operational support within the French education system for eco-delegates, teachers, schools and inspectors, at both primary and secondary level. These are exciting challenges that are shared by education systems the world over.

Éric Guilyardi

Oceanographer and climatologist, Director of Research at the CNRS, member of the Institut Pierre-Simon-Laplace, Paris, and Professor at the University of Reading, UK, Éric Guilyardi is a specialist in the El Niño phenomenon, its impact on climate and, more generally, the role of the ocean in climate and climate change. He was lead author of the^5th IPCC report and contributed to the ^6th. Highly committed to the transmission of knowledge to all, he regularly writes articles and books for the general public, both on climate science and on the links between science and society. He chairs the Office for Climate Education, under the aegis of UNESCO, whose vocation is to support primary and secondary school teachers in climate change education throughout the world. He is a member of the Conseil scientifique de l'Éducation nationale and the CNRS ethics committee.