23 New pathways for innovative ESD (Part 1)

Emma Gleeson shared insights from her doctoral research on effective climate change education, positioning it as a vital pathway for sociocultural transformation. She argued that education must go beyond knowledge transfer to actively challenge unsustainable values and practices, fostering students as agents of change who are willing and able to act.

Her research identifies several core principles of effective climate change education, beginning with the need to make learning meaningful by helping students build connections—to nature, to those directly impacted by the climate crisis, and to their own communities through experiential and collaborative learning. This fosters care, empathy, and personal responsibility.

Critical thinking is another cornerstone. Students must be equipped to interrogate and disrupt the sociocultural systems that underpin climate change. Ms Gleeson emphasised the role of critical media literacy, enabling learners to question consumerist narratives that equate self-worth with consumption, and to resist the culture of overconsumption. Similarly, incorporating critical political and historical perspectives empowers students to understand climate change as both an environmental and social justice issue.

Her findings, published in Environmental Education Research (co-authored with Dr John Morrissey), call for climate education that is thematic, cross-curricular, and emotionally engaged. She also surveyed over 200 primary teachers in Ireland, highlighting both enthusiasm for teaching climate change and barriers to implementation. Ms Gleeson concluded that effective climate change education requires integration across curricula and must be deliberately designed to nurture active, critically aware citizens who can contribute to a more sustainable future.

About the author

name: Emma Gleeson

institution: Mary Immaculate College

Emma Gleeson is a PhD Scholar in the Department of Geography at Mary Immaculate College.