Toolkit

Children are required to learn ‘facts’about issues like carbon, climate change, and environmental degradation.

Yet, whilst learning these facts and strategies is important, environmental education also runs the risk of being exclusionary in a couple of ways. On the one hand, it is dominated by ‘scientific’ knowledge, and often especially in secondary schools taught in disciplinary silos. Other approaches to knowing, engaging with and feeling the environment can be ignored. On the other hand, suggested strategies and behaviours might not be socially or culturally appropriate for all groups – whether in terms of gender, cultural or religious beliefs, disabilities, or more besides.

Since trees are a kind of ‘charismatic’ class of species, and in countries like the UK there are concerted efforts to plant more trees to sequester carbon, they offer an essential starting point for children’s environmental learning. This resource provides a set of prompts for considering how else children might learn about trees, with a focus on thinking about roots.