Inspiring Climate Action Now (ICAN)

The impacts of climate change—increasingly destructive weather patterns, rising costs for energy, higher levels of pollution leading to health problems, and depleted resources impacting livelihoods and social stability—are most significantly experienced by those who are least able to combat them.

Solutions to these complex problems require an understanding and application of science skills and habits of mind that most education systems are not well prepared to build. Preparing children and adults alike to participate in learning about climate science and addressing climate change is an investment in finding solutions for their future. And ensuring equitable access to science education in the foundational years is an important step in a just transition to green and blue economies.

Building on over 65 years of experience, EDC is using the power of science education to help communities respond and adapt to climate change.

EDC’s Inspiring Climate Action Now (ICAN) initiative leverages the environment and the daily lives of students and their communities, prepares teachers to serve as skilled guides for students engaging with science, and taps into and promotes curiosity and meaning-making that drive and result from learning. ICAN centers early science practices and habits of mind as foundational skills comparable to literacy, numeracy, and social-emotional learning – essential to later success in school and in life.

ICAN is currently being implemented in three countries: Mali, Zambia, and Antigua and Barbuda. The content in each country is aligned with existing curricula and instruction in science, literacy, and mathematics, and reinforces official learning expectations for those subjects. The ICAN materials are workshopped with participating educators, building on locally relevant climate issues and on questions that come from teachers and the local community.

“ICAN is a perfect entry point into citizen science. It’s designed to involve community members and respond to the issues they are seeing. In this way, science is not limited to people in lab coats in university labs or governmental buildings. Their everyday decisions and life actions are scientifically rooted.”
-EDC’s Joseph Isaac

The program consists of self-contained teacher education and student resource modules for grades 2 and 5 built upon three universal principles of science: Change, Data and Design.

• Change addresses how change is built into the natural world and how it affects both the natural and the built environment.
• Data addresses what is considered data, how we informally and formally collect data, how to read data and what can be considered reliable data.
• Design combines what students have learned in the Change and Data units to solve a problem. Learners think creatively to plan and implement a climate-related solution that has immediate impact in their community.

These three core principles are leveraged during instruction and action to activate and develop eight critical habits of mind:

• Curiosity
• Creativity
• Openness to New Ideas
• Flexibility
• Critical Thinking and Metacognition
• Responsibility and Self-direction
• Perseverance
• Humor

ICAN is a natural precursor to EDC’s Our World, Our Work initiative, building an equitable foundation of skills and habits of mind to help youth succeed in the green and blue economies.

ICAN in Action

ICAN training is led by EDC education specialists in collaboration with local climate specialists in participating countries, and lasts 10 days. Representatives from the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Environment in each country are engaged to endorse and learn from the training activities. ICAN modules for each country are locally-developed by participating teachers based on thematic guides, and cover six weeks of teaching or approximately one trimester of classes. Lesson banks are also informed by ICAN resources developed by teachers in other partner countries, addressing more global themes and content.

Children practice science by reading, discussing, observing, conducting fieldwork in and around the school, collecting data and engaging in analysis and creative design to respond to climate challenges with their peers and teachers. Teachers are engaged in an early science community of practice that promotes improved instruction and mutual problem-solving, as well as climate awareness and collective action.

ICAN Mali is implemented in Bamanankan-speaking schools in collaboration with the Ministry of National Education and District Education Offices. Both urban and rural schools are included in an area that wrestles with significant climate challenges including drought, flooding, heat, and displacement. ICAN Grade 2 and Grade 5 evaluation data show an increase in science knowledge and in climate literacy among both teachers and students, and increased use of effective, hands-on science teaching and learning in classrooms.

ICAN Zambia is implemented in Cinyanja-speaking schools in Lusaka Province, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, the Zambian Curriculum Development Center, Provincial and District Education Offices, and the Ministry of the Green Economy and Environment. Evaluation data on school and community impact of the programs are forthcoming, and will include baseline and endline data on teacher and student knowledge, attitudes and practices related to science and climate literacy, as well as data on community engagement and action.

ICAN Antigua and Barbuda is implemented on both islands, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Sport, and Creative Industries and local environmental organizations. The varying Caribbean climate challenges of intense storms, sustained drought, coral reef degradation and depleted fish and aquatic wildlife stocks are addressed in locally-developed lessons and in digital and traditional print resources for teachers and students. Evaluation data on school and community impact of the programs are forthcoming in 2025.