ET-APR22-MATHS WHIZZ FP ADV.qxp_Page 6 09/05/2022 15:06 Page 40


COMPUTING & IT


How Teachers can Tackle Climate Change by Teaching Mathematics


By Fiona Goddard, Education Consultant at Whizz Education and former Teacher I


n a number of her speeches, Greta Thunberg makes it clear that climate change should be


spoken about everywhere and often with the kind of gravitas that the earth’s predicament warrants. She marvels in her speech entitled ‘Almost Everything is Black and White’ (2018) that ‘the vast majority [of people don’t have a clue about the consequences of our everyday life’. This is something that teachers are well- equipped to change. This summer, Whizz Education is partnering


with PiXL (Partners in Excellence) to deliver a suite of free summer learning activities across disciplines that will focus on the topic of ‘Building for the Future’. Activities will be based around the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals 7, 9, 11 and 13. They will encourage children to learn about the environments in which they live and to support the development of a sustainable world with a focus on STEM activities during the Summer Term and Summer break. Whizz Education believes that maths education


is essential in developing an understanding of climate change and that learning about climate change will help students to deploy their maths in innovative, world-changing ways. Therefore, this is just one of many initiatives to assist teachers in embedding climate change within mathematics teaching, so that educators can produce students capable of saving the planet. So why is maths, specifically, important in


fighting climate change? Without numbers, students would not


understand ideals like the carbon budget or the limit of 1.5 degrees of warming at the centre of climate change debates. Without using data to think abstractly, our senses and observations alone would not confirm that climate change is occurring or that we need to act. Climate change is a statistical phenomenon that


is understood by mapping changes in average measurements (of temperature, sea level or snow fall, for example) over time and analysing variance


40 www.education-today.co.uk May 2022


to provide convincing evidence of a change in the global environment. Different mathematical processes must be used to build models to predict what is likely to happen to the environment. Similarly, mathematical diagrams must be used to communicate this information to decisionmakers and the public. In short, mathematical literacy is required on the part of citizens to understand the data, predictions and projections and to act accordingly. As well as teaching students to handle numbers,


education has the capacity to inspire, engage and empower. Numerous studies have shown that climate change education has the biggest impact when students are encouraged to take responsibility for learning about issues that impact them and their communities. For example, students could measure rainfall,


elevating maths skills by collecting and recording how many millimetres of liquid are captured on a


daily basis and discussing how to make the records useful, fair and impactful in the future? Getting involved with Whizz Education’s collaborative summer project with PiXL might provide other inspirations for local interests. Discussing climate change, celebrating world


environment day, having visitors speak about climate change, initiating projects for students to improve the sustainability of their own school (for example, by reducing food waste) or starting clubs to save the environment will have a profound impact on the future of the planet and can be used to cultivate ever-important mathematical knowledge and skills.


For further information and to access free resources from Whizz Education’s summer climate project please see: uhttps://www.whizz.com/summer-challenge- 2022/


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