David Wilgenbus is the Chief executive officer of the Office for Climate Education (OCE) since 2018. Astrophysicist by training, he has been involved in education for more than 20 years now as he was since 2001 the head of educational resources for the “La main à la pâte” Foundation which led to the creation of OCE in 2018.
The mission of OCE, which is also a category 2 centre under the auspices of UNESCO, is to support education system worldwide in promoting and implementing climate change education based on solid scientific knowledge (IPCC reports for the most). This is done through various initiatives with 70 different partners in 30 countries so far, communities of practice proving to be a key instrument.
When it comes to climate education, David believes we moved since the last 5 years roughly from awareness raising (and still the need to convince main actors that climate change education has to be integrated in learning), to operational change. In short, we moved from the why to the how, as the education community managed to reach a consensus on the need to act. There are some positive progresses so, and for the most we have many solutions ready, but some obstacles remain to implement them.
For example, David tells us that a lot of countries are working on integrating climate change to the curricula “but often ministries think that once the curriculum is changed, the task is done”. In fact, it is obviously far to be the case. Changing a curriculum is certainly important and not an easy task, but the most important things happen after that start for David, especially teacher’s training, which is key. OCE estimates the amount of hours necessary for a teacher to be really autonomous on climate change topic and be able to implement quality climate change education to 50 to 80 hours of training… Let’s keep that figure in mind, shall we?
QUESTIONS
01:25 What is the OCE, what were the objectives pursued?
05:35 Based on your experience with OCE, is there in your opinion a transformation in education at stake? What are your recommendations in this regard for meeting the challenges?
13:15 Can you tell us more about the ALEC Project you have developed in Latin America and what you learned from it?
OCE official website: https://www.oce.global/en
Learn more about the ALEC (Latin America for Climate Education) here: https://www.alec.oce.global/en/projects/alec
Are you interested to watch previous episodes? Check the Education for Climate TALKS
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