April 4th 2022

The Office for Climate Education launches an educational kit "The Climate in Our Hands - Climate change and Land" intended for primary and secondary schools

The Office for Climate Education (OCE), is a center under the aegis of UNESCO created at the initiative of La main à la pâte and the climate scientists community (the founding members are IPSL, Météo et Climat, IRD, Météo-France and Sorbonne University), which aims to promote climate change education in France and around the world. The OCE produces educational resources for teachers and students, through international cooperation between scientific bodies, NGOs and educational institutions. The OCE is releasing, from April 04, a set of free educational resources: "The Climate in our hands - Climate change and Land"

A global need for Climate change education 

As the consequences of climate change become more concrete every day, climate education is essential to prepare future generations to live in a changing world.

According to a UNESCO report released in 2021, only 53% of school curricula worldwide mention climate change, and only 2% do so in a meaningful way. Many institutional, scientific and civil society actors underlined, during COP26 in Glasgow, the need to support teachers to enable them to broach the subject with their students, by mobilizing simultaneously their "head", “heart” and “hands”.

Adapting IPCC reports for classroom use

After having successfully launched in 2021 an educational kit accompanying the IPCC report on the ocean and the cryosphere, the Office for Climate Education is making a new educational kit available to primary and secondary school teachers this year, accompanying the report of the IPCC on land.

These educational resources, the second part of the "Climate in our hands" series, allow students to understand the mechanisms of climate change and its impacts, as well as the importance of land in the regulation of the climate and in the development of societies.

Free, turnkey and modular, these interdisciplinary resources are designed to support teachers in their teaching of climate change, while offering them concrete action projects, at the level of the class or the educational community.

This second resource kit on the theme of climate and land, particularly in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, includes:

• A teacher’s handbook for primary and secondary schools, which offers a complete and modular progression;
• A summary of the IPCC report specially adapted for teachers, which offers complete, rigorous, easily accessible and richly illustrated scientific documentation;
• Video capsules adapted for classroom use, in which scientists explain different characteristics or phenomena related to land in the context of climate change;
• Interactive multimedia activities allowing students to work on the relationships between climate, agriculture and food, as well as on the impacts of climate change on different terrestrial ecosystems.

Distribution of the kit Climate in our hands - Climate Change and Land

As part of the launch of this teaching kit, the OCE, through the support of its partners, is distributing several thousand free paper copies of the teacher’s guidebook to teachers in France and abroad.

The Office for Climate Education invites all teachers wishing to implement this project to request their manual directly on the website.

In addition, in line with its mission to support the educational community, the OCE organizes throughout the year numerous free webinars and training sessions specially designed for teachers and trainers.

Media contact:

Communications officer: Djian Sadadou / djian.sadadou@oce.global / +33 7 49 95 69 93