Young people and climate change

We help Scottish schools and youth workers to develop effective climate change programmes for young people.

Across the world, young people are urging political, business and community leaders to take climate change seriously, raise their level of ambition and move from talking to action. Paradoxically, Scottish young people believe that many of their peers are not sufficiently aware of the severity of the situation and are calling for more to be done to embed climate learning into schools and other learning contexts.

Climate Ready Classrooms

Our innovative Climate Ready Classrooms project prepares young people to join a national network of Carbon Literate ambassadors who plan and act on climate change issues within their own schools and communities.

It is a one-day accredited Carbon Literacy training course for secondary schools which has been designed for young people aged 14–17 years, along with their teachers, head teachers, CLD practitioners and youth and children’s workers.

This brilliant experience has inspired to me to change my actions, to lower my carbon footprint and to spread awareness among my peers to hopefully inspire them to take action just like me.

Brandon Lei (S6), Climate Ready Classrooms participant, Lornshill Academy

Climate Emergency Training for youth workers and those working with young people

We are working in partnership with Young Scot and YouthLink Scotland on the COP26 Scottish Youth Climate Programme. The programme will ensure that young people can play a key role in Scotland’s response to the climate emergency, and that youth workers and those who work with young people are equipped to support them to do so.

As part of the programme, we are providing accredited Climate Emergency Training to young people, youth workers and people who work with young people.

Youth worker toolkit

This toolkit aims to help youth workers inform young people about the climate emergency, and empower them to take positive action.

The toolkit includes activities to help young people learn about, and discuss the impact of our choices on climate change, environment and people. The activities also introduce opportunities to find out more and take positive action to tackle climate change.

Take a look at the toolkit.

Youth Climate Film Project

We were delighted to deliver the Youth Climate Film Project which was funded by Screen Scotland.

The initiative involved youth workers attending film-making training so they could support young people to create short films that explore the climate emergency from a young person’s perspective.

The films were screened from April 12 2021 to stimulate discussion about climate change.

Eco-Schools Scotland

Our Eco-Schools Scotland programme offers free resources, tailored to the Scottish curriculum, that help primary and secondary schools engage with a wide range of climate issues including energy, food, waste, transport and water.