Blog post
Our Students Need Us To Do Better: The Results of Our Independent Research
Eli Atkinson
August 23, 2025
See the full research at https://www.teachthefuture.uk/research
During June and July of this year, Teach The Future asked the independent company Norstat to conduct a survey with 1001 students from years 5 to 13 in England. Their responses were used as a basis to reflect the population of all school students in England. We used a separate company to conduct the survey in order to help remove bias and increase the reliability of our results. At the beginning of the study, the students were told to frame their answers around this definition of climate change…
“...changes in the Earth’s usual weather conditions over many years. Climate change can happen naturally, but it is also caused by things humans are doing, like burning fossil fuels, cutting down too many trees and over-farming crops and animals. Our world has been getting hotter, and our weather is changing, mostly due to the things humans are doing.”
Here’s what we found out.
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Over 80% of students across the country want to learn more about climate change, and drastically so: with one year 10 student identifying climate change as ‘one of the most pressing issues of our time’.
Students wish they could know more about the climate crisis because they want to make informed choices to help mitigate the impacts of a warming planet. Our students are keen to know about new research into global warming and want to directly play a role in creating a more sustainable future. In fact, 90% of respondents said that it is important for all students to learn about climate change. So why doesn’t our education system reflect this?
When there are nearly twice as many students who want to stop the climate crisis, than students who have other interests or priorities in their learning, why do we see climate education as opt-in?
Apart from a small module in the GCSE Chemistry specification1, students will only learn about this global issue if they choose to take subjects such as Geography. A section of questions for GCSE and A-Level students found that, overwhelmingly, Geography was where students learnt the most about the climate crisis; with only around half of the respondents saying that they had learned about climate change in the sciences.
Apart from these 2 subjects, one of them being optional, the positive response rates dropped dramatically to 17% and below. Students shouldn’t have to worry about climate change when they are choosing their subject options.
Whilst over 90% of students say that school has taught them what climate change is, why it happens, and individual approaches to dealing with it, these numbers plummet to less than 75% of students who have learned about how daily life could change, and less than 65% of students have learned about climate inequality.
Nearly 80% of respondents wanted to learn who causes climate change.
This is so crucial because it is only recently that we are beginning to understand that tackling climate change must be a communal effort, and that individual attempts to reduce it are negligible next to the carbon release of fossil fuel corporations2 and (more and more often) tech firms trying to keep data centres running Artificial Intelligence models at cool temperatures3.
When the prevailing reason for students wishing to know more is to stop climate change, those with influence over the education systems need to prioritise calling out the key players, and spreading the importance of collective action.
It is clear from this survey that the schoolchildren of today are concerned about their future in a world that is only getting warmer. The education system also needs to teach students how to deal with their feelings and anxieties regarding climate change, to help the not-insignificant 64% of students who feel that this is something they would like to learn in the rest of their time in school.
The schoolchildren of England have spoken, it’s time to listen.
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References
[1] AQA. (2019). GCSE Chemistry Specification Specification for first teaching in 2016. Pages 78-79. Version 1.1.
[2] Solnit, R. (2021). Big oil coined ‘carbon footprints’ to blame us for their greed. Keep them on the hook. The Guardian.
[3] Zewe, A. (2025). Explained: Generative AI’s environmental impact. MIT News.