Climate-change education to be introduced to 4 schools

Four schools in the Cayman Islands will soon be taking part in a pilot project to introduce climate-change education to their curricula.

Using a €163,223 (CI$142,000) grant from the European Union’s Resilience, Sustainable Energy and Marine Biodiversity Programme, known as RESEMBID, the National Trust for the Cayman Islands is creating the programme.

According to a National Trust press release outlining the plan, the “overarching aim of the project is to improve the capacity of the Cayman Islands to mitigate and adapt to climate change through improved understanding of the threat, as well as through the protection of intact natural areas (such as coral reefs and mangroves) and increased renewable energy use, leading to greater resilience as a society”.

The pilot project at the four schools – which have not yet been chosen – will act as a model for other programmes throughout the region, the Trust says.

Catherine Childs, the National Trust’s environmental programmes manager, told the Compass that the plan is to create a teacher resource “that will be interactive, engaging, and easy to use so that every educator can feel confident and supported in teaching this important subject”.

The new programme is expected to be rolled out in schools during the Fall semester.

“We are grateful to RESEMBID for this grant to ensure that every child in the Cayman Islands receives a quality education on this critical subject,” Childs said. “To be prepared for the inevitable consequences of climate change, our young people must understand the issue well.”

The National Trust says it will work with both public and private primary and secondary schools in Grand Cayman and Cayman Brac to create a standardised curriculum on climate science.

The pilot programme will include classroom visits and the development of an e-Learning platform that will provide standardised climate science material.

“Teachers and students will then be better equipped with information on the effects of climate change that will prepare our society for future challenges,” the National Trust stated in the press release.

RESEMBID supports sustainable human development efforts of 12 Caribbean jurisdictions: Anguilla, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Montserrat, Turks and Caicos Islands, Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Saba, Sint Eustatius, Sint Maarten, and Saint-Barthélemy.