Italy's education minister said on Tuesday that its public schools would soon require students in every grade to study climate change and sustainability, a step he said would put Italy at the forefront of environmental education worldwide.
That 33-hour-a-year lesson, he said, will be used as a pilot program to ultimately fold the climate agenda of the United Nations into the entire curriculum. For children age 6 to 11, he said,"we are thinking of using the fairy-tale model," in which stories from different cultures would emphasise a connection to the environment. Middle schoolers would be expected to learn more technical information, and high school students would explore the United Nations' 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in depth.
"Talking about global warming - we are in the middle of May and call upon global warming, because we haven't had a cold like this in Italy in recent years," he said."We are turning on our heaters.""That's the kind of nonsense we want to avoid by educating children that this is the most important challenge humanity has ever faced," he said."And I want to secure this before there is any change in government that can imperil that kind of process.