Quebec students feel 'betrayed' by lack of climate education

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Skyler St. Louis remembers when her elementary school teachers would bring her and her classmates outside to pick up trash, to try to teach them about protecting the planet.

"I remember being so passionate about it," said St. Louis, now a second-year student at John Abbott College in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, in Montreal's West Island.

But that sparkthat care and concern for the natural worldisn't nourished by the education system, she said.

Somewhere along the way, St. Louissaid, it gets buried by other assignments, other subjects, other core competencies that must be met, leaving another generation unprepared to face what will be the biggest challenge of their lifetime climate change.

"I feel like I am betrayed by the education system a little bit," she said. "I just wish that we didn't let that passion die."

That's why St. Louis and her classmates are calling for a host of changes on their campus andfor more robust climate education in Quebec overall, including core courses on climate change for all students.

WATCH| Education system is 'failing us' on climate change, students say:

Why these Quebec students say they need mandatory climate change courses

2 years ago

Duration 2:05

Four John Abbott College students share their frustrations with an education system that they say leaves them ill-prepared to face the climate crisis.

Sofia McVetty, a second-year science student at John Abbott, said other than part of a unit in her first-year biology course, the only climate science education she has received has been inelectives she has sought out.

She said not only should climate science be a larger core requirement to get a science diploma, it should be a requirement for all students.

"[It's] really frustrating and a little bit disappointing given that climate change is really one of the big challenges that our generation is going to face that we're barely learning about it in school," McVetty said.

Climate education 'piecemeal' across Canada

Quebec's education ministry responded late Friday afternoon to say while there is no mandatory climate change class, the new Quebec citizenship and culture course rolling out across the province next year aims to "prepare students for the challenges of tomorrow" including environmental issues.

The course, which replaced the ethics and culture program, also covers sex education, media literacy, the foundations of Quebec society, civics, secularism and a section on Indigenous communities, among other topics.

The ministry said the Secondary 4 science and technology class also includes a module on climate change. As well, "environment and consumption" is one of the five key education themes that all teachers can integrate into their lessons.

At the CEGEPlevel, the ministry said instructors are also given tools to include climate education into their courses, with the goal of helping "students live in society in a responsible way."

But research by Ellen Field, an assistant professorofeducation at Lakehead University, found a "piecemeal" approachtoteaching climate change in Canada.

The 2015 Paris climate agreement included a call for countries to adopt climate education and training strategies, but Field said Canada has not yet done so.

Quebec's education ministry said the accord leaves it to signatory countries to best determine how to improve climate change education, and does not require a specificaction plan.

But UNESCO also declared last year that environmental education should be a core component of the curriculum in all schools by 2025.

Field said British Columbia became the first province,last December, to adopt an official policy statement on how climate change should be taught, buteven that is not a guarantee of what students actually learn.

A survey of a control group of Canadian teachers found that only a third felt prepared to teach about climate change. Most students received between oneand 10 hours of instruction over a semester or school year, she said.

"That's not very much when it comes to thinking about the gravity of the climate emergency," said Field.

At John Abbott, McVetty said students want to see their college hire a climate literacy specialist, to help educate staff about how to approach climate change in their classrooms not only in science classes, but in humanities, as well.

A former science professor at the school, Heather Short, made a similar proposalbefore she resigned from her job last year, calling for an overhaul of climate education.

No one from the college administration was available for an interview.

Lauren Hornby, another student in the sustainability class, is keenly invested inimprovingthe curriculum, as she plans to become a science teacher herself.

But she worries the students she teaches will be facing an even grimmer future than the one she is facing now.

"What can I tell them? How do you tell someone that? Like, the world is on fire, the planet is dying, and there's not really anything that people in charge are doing."

'A kind of paralysis'

Field said in order to avoid sending students into despair,it's key they also learn about solutions something that is widely missing from climate education in Canada.

Her analysis of Canadian school curricula found that 87 per cent of the concepts that students were expected to learn were about the causes of climate change, and only 13 per cent focused on action-taking.

International research, Field said, has shown that eco-anxiety a feeling of impending doom about the climate crisis is correlated with feelings of betrayal at the inaction of decision-makers.

"Young people need to seeadults taking action, and then they also need to have opportunity within their educational experience to be engaging in climate action," she said. "That is an antidote for some of the very negative, complex climate emotions that young people feel."

Edwin Jazvac, a second-year science student at John Abbott, is navigating those feelings.He said while he's taken some individual steps to control his carbon footprint, such as eliminating meat from his diet, he still feels like he's not doing enough.

"There's a kind of a paralysis, almost like an inability to act," he said.

"If I had a wider kind of a support group of other students and teachers that were all doing things together, I think it makes that change a lot easier."

Actions on campus

That's one of the reasons why the students are pushing for more change at an institutional level.

The college has a sustainability committee and is in the process of adopting a climate acton plan, McVetty said. But she said students need to see more progress.

"We just need to have more institutional support," she said."Right now there are a lot of things going on on campus, but they're all very small, more grassroots-type initiatives."

"There have been large reports put together by groups of people at college, and they're kind of in the works, but nothing concrete happening," said Jazvac. "It's a little bit frustrating."

As part of their sustainable campus class, students are developing projects aimed at tackling climate change from increasing the proportion of local and plant-based food inthe college's cafeteria, to replacing sprawling lawns with native plants.

But these aren't just assignments for class credit the students want to see their campus transformed.

Thea Contardi, who is going into her last semester in social science, envisions a campus with large community gardens, where students learn horticulturalskills that they can apply at home, too.

"We can live an environmentally conscious life by doing small things," she said.

But Contardi said while individuals can make changes in their own communities, it's disheartening to see how little action governments are taking to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions.

It's making it difficult for her to imagine what kind of life she'll live.

"I have older siblings, and I'm seeing them starting families. They have the picture-perfect life, and I'm here, like, I don't know that I'll get that," she said.

"I still have in the back of my mind:okay, yeah, I have a future, but ... it's getting harder to believe it."