5th International Conference on Climate Change Education
With the motto “Building a sustainable future from the school”, the 5th International Conference on Climate Change Education took place in Santiago, Chile from 5 – 9 June 2023. The conference saw experts from Latin America come together and discuss the importance of integrating climate change education into school curricula, training teachers, developing quality open educational resources and fostering collaboration between public policy, civil society, economics, science and education.
Chile’s Minister of Environment, Maisa Rojas participated in the conference calling for building a society “resilient to the impacts of climate change”. She highlighted the role of climate change education in mitigating two major challenges of our era: ecological extinction and contamination.
Our Managing Director, Dr. Nina Smidt delivered a virtual speech at the conference emphasizing the urgency for intersectoral collaboration to promote the open education movement, systematize initiatives, and participate in the building of an action plan to contribute to climate action and resilience. She urged the need to empower teachers to impart the complexities of climate change to the students by integrating pedagogies with the STEM approach.
Ulrike Wahl (Head of Regional Office Latin America) presented the collaborative strategy for the implementation of climate change education with the Red STEM Latin America and Latin America for Climate Change Education (ALEC) partners. Paola Pino (Communications) moderated the conference.
The five-day event was kicked off with an ECC stakeholders and practitioners from workshop led by Badin Borde (STEMplus Climate, Education) and Djian Sadadou (OCE) on best practices and challenges faced in the implementation of climate change education projects. This was followed by three days teacher training workshops with teachers from across Chile at the Museo Interactivo Mirador (MIM). Teachers received training on teaching greenhouse effect, climate change on land, oceans and cryosphere as well as eco anxiety and the implementation of projects for climate action in schools.
The event was organized by the ICEC Program of the Ministry of Education, the University of Chile, the Center for Climate Science and Resilience (CR)2, the Inquiry-Based Science Education Program (ECBI), Mirador Interactive Museum (MIM), Office for Climate Education (OCE), the Red STEM Latin America network and Siemens Stiftung.
The presentations are available online: