Currently, the matter of whether it’s necessary to include climate change and sustainability in school curricula rages on. Those who are in favor of the former claim that the awareness of those problems should be passed on to the future generations. Those who are not in favor of the latter, suggest that we should not exclude it, but it should not be a major topic. This essay will look at the pros and cons of both sides and my side will also be stated.
The first group of people thinks that most of the issues we face today are environmental and one of the reasons for that is the climate, such as change in temperature, forest fires, emission of gases, water and soil contamination, loss of wildlife (paraphrased for natural speech). These individuals are the ones who think that students should have a clear understanding of these problems as their behaviours have the most significant effect on the earth. What’s more beneficial, the study of sustainability makes learners show a responsible behavior and thereby get more chances of making positive decisions. It is also possible that if schools adopt those environmental-friendly approaches, children may pick up such practices as the one-time use of plastics will be lessened.
In contrast, some people are convinced that the conventional school curriculum is already rich in subjects that include the basics of everything, such as science, math, and languages, that lead to academic achievements and future careers the most. They claim that students refuse to do green issues or green topics as their statement can not be true since educational topics are not of interest to everyone, and kids who like the subject might just share the information through social media or attend programs available in a community instead of taking a lot of time in school.
Personally, I strongly believe that ecology could be taught to every student not as a separate subject but integrated into any of the existing subjects such as science or social studies. With this plan, students can still continue with the core subject but still learn about sustainability.
On the whole, despite legitimate apprehensions about overloading the curriculum, a large part of the future population with a rich and conscious will can only be truly formed by the teaching of sustainability to all students.