By A/Prof Peta White – March 2026
We live in uncertain times; our human systems are negatively impacting Earth systems resulting in multiple impacts of local to global scale. Recognising the lack of certainty is a measure of the complexity of both our global situation and local socio-ecological impacts. Strong social justice concerns exist as those contributing the least to human-induced climate change are often impacted the most (IPCC, 2023). Many argue that we are now in the “Anthropocene”, having moved on from the geologic era Holocene into an epoch of human induced change at global scale. We must attend to our human systems to generate new ways forward, recognising errors of the past and establishing innovative and responsible ways of the future. Education is an important human system and has great potential to scaffold change as we learn to value the thriving of all species and ecological integrity of Earth systems. In this short blog, I will outline how education is leading change through international curriculum policy, expressed nationally and locally.
In 2021, the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Programme of International Student Assessment (PISA) commissioned the 2025 Science Framework (OECD, 2025) with a recommendation to pay close attention to environmental science. The support document Agency in the Anthropocene (White et al, 2023) articulated the challenges we face and outlined some ways forward through science education.
In 2025, the OECD PISA presented the Climate Literacy Framework (OECD, 2025) at the Conference of Parties meeting in Brazil – COP 30. This document opens the possibility for all young people to engage in climate literacy as a part of school-based learning (as PISA is taken by 15-year-olds in 2029).
Nations who want to perform well in PISA carefully consider these frameworks to design their curricula (a little like ‘teaching to the test’ or clarifying the outcomes to design the learning inputs). This is how international standardised assessments provide great opportunity and leverage for quality education in our Australian system.
We can now be confident in establishing education practices in primary and lower secondary school that address the challenges of climate change education (see figure 1 for a summary). Climate education is an interdisciplinary, or transdisciplinary, opportunity to engage the entire school community in learning and generating change in our human systems.
Figure 1: PISA 2029 Climate Literacy Framework (OECD, 2025) Challenges of Climate Change Education (p.9).
PISA define climate literacy as:
Climate literacy is the ability to understand how the climate system works, how human actions affect it, and how climate change impacts people and ecosystems. It combines this knowledge with evidence-based reasoning and systems thinking; the capacity to evaluate evidence, information and perspectives; and the agency to shape (individually and collectively) sustainable futures. (OECD, 2025, p.14).
Four competencies are offered to focus learning and aid assessment
- Understand and explain human-induced climate change
- Apply evidence-based and system-reasoning to climate challenges
- Evaluate arguments and perspectives on climate change
- Exercise agency for climate futures (OECD, 2025, p.16)
We now have a directive to enable school-based learning to focus on critical thinking to manage misinformation, design action projects that lead the school community to enact human system change, and to focus on the development of agency in our young people and community to empower us all to make responsible decisions going forward (Tytler et al, 2025).
We have called this climate change education – until now. Recently we have been confronted with the narrative of ‘planetary boundaries’ (Steffan et al, 2015) that position climate change as only one of nine boundaries. A recent report (Sakschewski et al, 2025) illustrates how seven of the nine boundaries have transgressed the safe operating zones… climate change is one of those seven (as is biosphere integrity, biogeochemical flows, and pollution – novel entities). There is much to do to change human practices to ensure the safe operating zones are re-established.
The questions now surface… should we continue to call what we do ‘climate change education’ or should we progress to a more inclusive and enabling title such as Regenerative Learning (White et al, 2025). Regenerative learning focusses on developing learner and community agency as we attend directly to re-learning or re-shaping human systems that prioritise ecological integrity and thriving for all species.
To read more – explore the Australian Research Council funded project outcomes “Enacting Climate Change Education” here
References
IPCC (2023). Synthesis report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. https://www.ipcc.ch/synthesis-report/
OECD. (2023). PISA 2025 Science Framework. https://pisa-framework.oecd.org/science-2025
OECD. (2025). PISA 2029 Climate Literacy Framework. https://www.oecd.org/en/about/projects/PISA-2029-Climate-Literacy.html
Steffen, W., Richardson, K., Rockström, J., Cornell, S. E., Fetzer, I., Bennett, E. M., Biggs, R., Carpenter, S.R., de Vries, W., de Wit, C.A., Folke, C., Gerten, D., Heinke,J., Mace, G.M., Persson, L.M., Ramanathan, V., Reyers,B., & Sörlin, S. (2015). Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet. Science, 347(6223). doi: 10.1126/science.125985
Sakschewski, B., Caesar, L., Andersen, L., Bechthold, M., Bergfeld, L., Beusen, A., Billing, M., Bodirsky, B. L., Botsyun, S., Dennis, D., Donges, J. F., Dou, X., Eriksson, A., Fetzer, I., Gerten, D., Häyhä, T., Hebden, S., Heckmann, T., Heilemann, A., Huiskamp, W. N., Jahnke, A., Kaiser, J., Kitzmann, N., Krönke, J., Kühnel, D., Laureanti, N. C., Li, C., Liu, Z., Loriani, S., Ludescher, J., Mathesius, S., Norström, A., Otto, F., Paolucci, A., Pokhotelov, D., Rafiezadeh Shahi, K., Raju, E., Rostami, M., Schaphoff, S., Schmidt, C., Steinert, N. J., Stenzel, F., Virkki, V., Wendt-Potthoff, K., Wunderling, N., Rockström, J. (2025): Planetary Health Check 2025: A Scientific Assessment of the State of the Planet, Potsdam : Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), 144 p. doi.org/10.48485/pik.2025.017
Tytler, R., Monroe, M.C., Eames, C., & White, P.J. (2025). Expanding the Scope of Science Education to Engage with Anthropocene Challenges. Research in Science Education, 55, 1129–1147, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-025-10276-8
White, P.J., Ardoin, N.A., Eames, C., Monroe, M.C. (2023). Agency in the Anthropocene: Supporting document to the PISA 2025 Science Framework, OECD Education Working Papers, No. 297, OECD Publishing. https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/agency-in-the-anthropocene_8d3b6cfa-en.html
White, P.J., Birdsall, S., & Sack, F. (2025). Catching the Wave: Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand Educators’ perceptions of Environmental and Sustainability Education practices. https://mset-ed-deakin.org.au/research-projects/catching-the-wave/