Over the next week, communities are coming together to participate in a global week of action to coincide with the UN Climate Summit beginning on 23 September. Over several days, global leaders from government, business and civil society will come together to address the global climate emergency.
With the topic in the spotlight, the results of a recent online survey, commissioned by the Society and undertaken by YouGov, have revealed that geography GCSE is the most widely recognised subject to study in order to understand the effects of climate change.
It also reveals that more young adults think studying geography can help you learn about climate change (82% of 18-24 year olds), compared with older generations (72% of 55+ year olds). These findings coincide with the resurgence of the discipline’s popularity with a record 265,000 students choosing to sit the geography GCSE examination in summer 2019.
Entries for the GCSE have also grown every year for the last nine years, and are now 50% higher than in 2010. The geography National Curriculum and GCSE and A Level examination courses include coverage of weather, climate change, the environment, ecological systems and the carbon cycle. Studying geography GCSE offers pupils, especially those engaged by the school climate strikes but who are yet to decide their GCSE options, a chance to understand more about the world’s systems and processes.
Find out more about choosing geography at GCSE.
For schools, we have a range of climate change resources to utilise with over 50 case studies, resource units, online lectures, podcasts and animations about climate and climate change.
Interested in events discussing climate change? Find out more.