Page 34 - Climate Conference - EBook 2023: Al-Qasemi Academy

Systemic effort to meet the challenge of
climate change education in Israel.
Prof. Tali Tal

The Dean of the Faculty of Education in Science and
Technology of the Technion

ABSTRACT
Climate change is the main challenge humanity faces, regardless of continents and
countries. Climate change education is one vehicle for introducing behavioral changes in
the public, policy, and private spheres. However, despite calls to introduce climate change
education, in most countries there is little systematic effort to introduce climate change to
the curriculum and force the education system to include it in all stages of schooling. In my
talk, I will describe how a voluntary effort of a group of scientists was adopted by the Israeli
Ministry of Education and how curriculum guidelines were collaboratively developed,
leading to a declaration on compulsory teaching about climate change since the
2022–2023 school year. This curriculum development is followed by diverse teacher
professional programs, developed by both formal and informal education institutes. These
interventions have already been studied to provide up-to-date evidence about their
outcomes and effectiveness.
Biography:
Professor Tali Tal is the Dean of the Faculty of Education in Science and Technology of the
Technion, Israel Institute of Technology and Past-President of NARST a Global
Organization for Improving Science Education through Research. She is the PI of the
National Teacher Center of Environmental Education and Sustainability Education and she
is a member of the Climate Change steering committee of the Ministry of Education. Tal is
interested in bridging formal and informal science education, in teaching science through
inquiry and in using socioscientific issues to teach about the complex relationships
between science, the environment and society. Recently, she is involved in citizen science
as a form of participatory science.