COP28 experience sees advocate push for curriculum change
Grade 11 Sherwood Park student Shelby Hartman says that while climate change is top of mind for her generation, there remains a knowledge gap between advocates and the general population that prevents faster change.
That gap is why Hartman, one of 60 global youth chosen to attend the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference in December, is now calling for the Alberta government to add climate change education to the provincial curriculum.
"One of my big concerns is a lot of people aren't really educated on climate change," Hartman told Taproot. "Most adults I talk to about climate change, they have the same level of knowledge or less than me, which seems really odd. So, definitely there's a very big information gap between the general population and those people who campaign about climate change, so that bridge needs to be fixed."
Hartman said the Alberta curriculum should change, but added governments and politicians should also shift their approach to climate change, especially with the language and information they use.
"They just keep it in these crazy high scientific terms that most people don't understand, and no one's going to go out of their way and look it up if they just don't understand it," she said. "Some people will, but not everyone will, so we need to reach the general population, not the elite select few at the top."
Hartman said adding climate change to the curriculum could move the needle on this point. "The government controls (the) curriculum and controls how we educate our youth, so if they implement climate change in the curriculum, and climate change knowledge at a comprehensive level for each grade, then climate change knowledge overall will increase and also children can educate their parents."
Hartman's trajectory to attending COP28 began with her childhood passion for the outdoors. This naturally expanded into environmentalism as she grew up. "As a little kid you take all these little actions … (and) you know why you're doing them, but you don't understand the bigger picture," she said.
Hartman said COP28 was an opportunity to see the bigger picture, and one central takeaway from the experience was the shared effect that climate change has had on people across the globe.
"It was just very enlightening to know that we're all in this together, and then it was also very educational to learn about how different groups react to climate change," she said.
