What 39 Young People Told Researchers About Climate Education
In 2025, the researchers held seven online discussion groups inspired by a “climate café” model, a format built to give people room to share their climate emotions.
Many of the young people said their classroom climate lessons were reduced to “carbon footprints.” The focal point the researchers draw from those conversations is that climate education must move away from individual blame and include emotions — teach the feelings, not just the physics.
Participants also wanted the conversations to happen outside the classroom, in their immediate communities.
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Carbon footprints are the slim end of the wedge. Teach the accounting and the crisis becomes a personal ledger, which is exactly the individual-blame framing the participants were pushing against.
Ontario's Ministry of Education has committed to embedding learning about the environment, yet participants described classrooms focused on individual habits alone, such as recycling. Habits aren't the enemy here — pretending they are the whole subject is.