Postcards From Elsewhere: What the World Can Teach Us About Climate Education

In my most optimistic moments I think that maybe, just maybe, UK is not doing badly at climate education. The DfE has a strategy, schools have requirements, and there is a growing community of teachers and sustainability leads making it happen. But we are not doing as well as we could — and in some areas, other countries are doing things that are worth knowing about.

This is not a league table. International comparisons are seductive but often misleading — what works in Denmark works partly because of things that are specifically Danish. But there are ideas, approaches, and proofs of concept from around the world that are genuinely useful for UK schools. Here are five of them, each with a specific takeaway.

🇩🇰 Denmark

Climate education is statutory across every subject – from age 6.

In 2021, Denmark reformed its national curriculum to make sustainability a mandatory cross-curricular theme from primary school onwards. It’s linked closely to the United Nations Sustainability Goals. Every subject – not just science and geography -is expected to address sustainability in age-appropriate ways. A maths lesson might involve calculating household carbon footprints. A Danish language lesson might involve writing persuasive texts about environmental issues. It is not an add-on.

Anything to learn? The cross-curricular approach is exactly what the DfE’s own Curriculum and Assessment Review is pointing toward (and the Rose Review, way back when) but Denmark has legislated for it rather than leaving it to individual schools. UK schools that want to get ahead of this can start now: audit where climate already appears across subjects and make the connections explicit.

🇫🇮 Finland

Phenomenon-based learning puts climate education at the centre.

Finnish schools use what they call phenomenon-based learning: extended, cross-disciplinary projects built around real-world questions rather than subject silos. Climate change is a natural fit – it is exactly the kind of complex, real-world challenge that doesn’t fit neatly into a single subject. Pupils might spend several weeks exploring a question like ‘How does what we eat affect the planet?’ drawing on science, economics, geography, ethics, and communication skills simultaneously. No timetable slot for climate change is needed because climate change is everywhere.

Anything to learn? UK Secondary Schools cannot simply adopt the Finnish model because our timetable structures are too different. But the principle is transferable: identify two or three subjects that could run a joint project on a climate theme, and build one in this year. It does not require timetable reform. It requires one term of planning and willing colleagues. Possibly far easier in Primary.

🇳🇿 New Zealand

Indigenous knowledge is embedded in how climate is taught.

New Zealand’s climate curriculum draws explicitly on Maori concepts, particularly kaitiakitanga, the idea of guardianship of the natural world. This is not tokenism but instead is a genuinely different way of framing the human relationship with the environment: one based on responsibility and reciprocity rather than ownership and resource extraction. Schools in New Zealand have found that this framing resonates with pupils across cultural backgrounds, and that it produces a different, less fatalistic relationship with climate action.

Anything to learn? UK schools have their own indigenous and local knowledge traditions to draw on – from land stewardship in rural communities to the deep environmental knowledge held by other communities whose ancestral homelands are disproportionately affected by climate change. Whose knowledge about the environment is in your curriculum? Whose is missing?

🇰🇪🇷🇼 Kenya and Rwanda

Schools doing extraordinary things with almost no resources

In parts of sub-Saharan Africa, schools with tiny budgets and limited infrastructure are doing climate education that puts better-resourced systems to shame, mainly because they have no choice. Climate change is not a future threat in rural Kenya or Rwanda but a present reality: changing rainfall patterns affecting food security, erratic seasons disrupting planting, increased flooding. Schools in these contexts teach climate not as an abstract subject but as a practical survival skill. Pupils learn to read weather patterns, build water-efficient gardens, and adapt local farming practices. The urgency is not manufactured.

Anything to learn? The lesson here is not about resources – it is about relevance. Climate education that connects to pupils’ real lives and real communities is more powerful than climate education that is abstract and distant. How local is your climate curriculum? What does climate change look like in your specific community, your specific geography, your specific economy?

🇨🇷 Costa Rica

100% renewable electricity – and a school culture that reflects it

Costa Rica generates almost all of its electricity from renewable sources – mostly hydropower, geothermal, and wind. This is not a recent achievement: the country has been above 90% renewable for most of the past two decades. What is interesting for schools is what this does to the cultural context of climate education. When pupils live in a country where clean energy is the norm, not the aspiration, the conversation shifts. It is not about whether this is possible – it demonstrably is. It is about how to go further. Schools in Costa Rica teach climate action from a position of demonstrated success rather than theoretical hope.

Anything to learn?The UK cannot replicate Costa Rica’s geography or its decades of energy policy. But we can be honest with pupils about the genuine progress that has been made here – and frame it the same way. Renewable energy now generates over 40% of UK electricity. That is not enough. But it is proof that change is possible. Teaching from a position of demonstrated progress, rather than only demonstrated crisis, changes the emotional context of climate education.

The bottom line

Other countries are doing things that are worth knowing about – and finding out about them can not only inspire, but also serves to share good news.

————

notyetzero supports schools with carbon literacy training, climate action planning, and curriculum development. Get in touch.