The aim of this session is to invite science teachers practising ESD to honestly examine their inner relationship to change-making, and discover what the IDG framework offers in response. Also to equip participants with practical, IDG-grounded techniques to help pupils experience sustainability as a way of living, not merely a body of knowledge.
"ESD is more than knowledge and skills — it is a way of living." If this is true: Are we living it? And what might quietly prevent us?
This workshop holds space for both. You'll be invited to notice — honestly and without judgement — how your own sustainability work feels from the inside: the urgency, the satisfaction, the fatigue, and perhaps the subtle resistance when genuine progress appears. You'll encounter the identity trap: the deeply human tendency to become so invested in change-making as a source of meaning that we unknowingly slow our own progress.
Far from a counsel of despair, this is an opening. The IDG framework offers a practical map of the inner capacities that ESD actually demands — and techniques for cultivating them, in yourself and in your pupils.
You'll leave knowing which IDG dimensions your teaching currently develops and which remain untouched — and with a few concrete techniques to help yourself and your pupils experience sustainability as lived reality rather than distant abstraction.
Participants should be able to: > Recognise the identity trap in their own ESD practice and approach it with curiosity rather than resistance > Identify which IDG dimensions their current teaching cultivates and which remain underdevelope > Apply at least one embodied, IDG-grounded technique to help pupils experience sustainability as a way of living
Background: A 2010 School Science Review article observed that ESD requires "tenacity and a specific way of working — it is a way of living." Yet years working across sustainability groups revealed a paradox for me: the more committed the change-maker, the more likely they were to have lost felt, embodied connection to what a sustainable future actually looks like to inhabit. Busy change-making had quietly replaced the lived experience of the change itself. A second, more confronting pattern emerged: we often unknowingly derive identity, purpose, and meaning from the change-making process. When genuine solutions surface, they are subtly resisted — completing the work would require reinventing ourselves. Kegan and Lahey (2009) name this the immunity to change: competing commitments operating largely beneath awareness.
The Inner Development Goals framework (IDG Foundation, 2021), co-created with over 1,000 researchers and practitioners, maps 23 inner skills across five dimensions — Being, Thinking, Relating, Collaborating, and Acting — as the missing complement to the SDGs, and offers a rigorous developmental path for the inner work ESD actually demands.
In this session attendees will be introduced to Model-Evidence-Link (MEL) instructional materials designed to assist American learners as they construct arguments to evaluate the plausibility of evidence connected to models and the research base that supports using these scaffolds. These MEL diagrams allow students to think critically about socio-scientific issues by evaluating connections between lines of evidence and alternative explanatory claims.
Explorations that utilize the MEL scaffold promote changes in epistemic judgments, including claim plausibility, and help students move toward a more civically minded and scientific stance. Student discourse is a critical part of these activities and include negotiation toward scientific consensus.
MEL activities for available for teaching about socio-scientific issues include climate change, dead zones, energy, extreme weather, fracking, freshwater resources, fossils, moon formation, nuclear energy, origins of the universe, soil and food security and wetlands. All materials are freely available under a Creative Commons license. Participants receive access to all instructional materials and instructional guides, found here:
This session will walk participants through what we learned from Adapt-Ed about teaching climate adaptation effectively at primary level. We will share key findings on what worked, what surprised us and what the children and teachers told us about the experience. Participants will have hands-on time with the curriculum resources and materials developed through the project, all of which are freely available to download and use. There will be space to discuss how the approaches might translate to your own school context and ask questions about the research and delivery model.
Outcomes: By the end of the session, participants will be able to: • Explain the difference between climate mitigation and adaptation and why both matter in primary education • Access and use Adapt-Ed curriculum resources and teacher CPD materials in their own setting • Identify at least two place-based or experiential approaches to teaching climate adaptation that are realistic for a primary classroom • Reflect on how climate adaptation themes can connect to existing curriculum areas in science and beyond
Background: Climate change education in schools has tended to focus on mitigation - reducing emissions - while adaptation, preparing children and communities for the impacts already underway, has received far less attention. Yet UK schools are already experiencing those impacts directly, from overheating classrooms to local flooding, and children in disadvantaged areas are disproportionately affected. Adapt-Ed was a collaborative research project led by Sheffield Hallam University with The Green Estate, Sheffield City Council and Let's Go Zero, working with primary schools in disadvantaged Sheffield neighbourhoods. The project developed and delivered teacher CPD, curriculum resources and immersive outdoor learning experiences focused on flood risk, drought, overheating, food security and nature-based solutions. Robust evaluation tracked changes in children's ecological literacy, connectedness to nature and pro-environmental attitudes using the 2-MEV (Two Major Environmental Values) scale.
How can chemistry lessons help learners make sense of climate change and sustainability?
In this session, we explore how sustainability contexts can bring chemical concepts to life and connect them to the global challenges of climate change.
We use examples from historical developments and current research to show how chemistry underpins a range of climate solutions. We will look at how chemists and scientists tackle these issues, helping learners see the relevance of their studies beyond the classroom.
We will explore ready-to-use resources and approaches, and reflect on how teachers could adapt these for their own settings. We will also draw on findings from the Green Shoots report to show how teachers can embed climate change and sustainability more consistently and meaningfully into chemistry teaching.
This session explores how EarthLearn and EarthTogether are supporting schools to develop a coherent, future-facing approach to environmental science education, Moving beyond single-issue topics, these initiatives connect themes such as air quality, climate and biodiversity through real-world student-driven enquiry. Drawing on the Air We Breathe programme as a case study from King's Group Academies, we will demonstrate how local contexts can be used to engage students with global challenges, build data literacy and foster meaningful action. We will also introduce Minibeasts and Me, a new biodiversity-focused programme that extends this model into the study of ecosystems and the natural world.
Participants will gain insight into how authentic contexts, collaboration across schools and partners, and a strong emphasis on student agency can transform science learning. Through interactive discussion and practical examples, the session will consider how these approaches can be adapted across different settings and phases. Aligned with the conference theme, this session highlights how working together can support the development of connected, relevant and empowering science education that equips young people to understand and shape their world.
From global to local - learning that connects communities. One of the most powerful aspects of our learning platform is its' ability to bridge the global and the local. As well as presenting global programmes, we bring together community-centres stories from around the world and weave meaningful connects between them - helping learners understand... Read More →
Climate change is now part of everyday classroom conversation, yet many primary teachers still feel uncertain about how best to explain complex climate topics in a balanced, age-appropriate and scientifically confident way.
This highly practical and interactive workshop draws on lessons learned through delivering climate workshops to KS2 pupils in primary schools across the Midlands, together with the development of The Climate Classroom educational podcast and companion educational materials.
The session will focus on practical, classroom-tested approaches for helping children understand key climate ideas clearly: what greenhouse gases do, why the planet is warming, how food, transport and materials connect to climate, and how solutions and innovation can be discussed without creating fear or confusion.
Participants will experience adaptable techniques including role play, discussion prompts, short quizzes, visual imagery and simple explanation frameworks designed for KS2 and early KS3 pupils.
The session will also consider how teachers can prepare well using reliable materials and trusted scientific sources, while still responding honestly to unexpected pupil questions that may need follow-up after the lesson.
Sources discussed will include NASA, NOAA, the IPCC, the WMO and the UK Met Office.
Participants will leave with practical classroom strategies, classroom-tested activity ideas, greater confidence in discussing climate change, and examples of freely accessible climate literacy resources suitable for KS2 and early KS3 classrooms.
Climate change education is becoming increasingly important within secondary science education. However, biodiversity, ecosystems, and climate change are often taught separately, limiting opportunities for students to develop connected understanding of environmental issues and sustainability challenges.
This session introduces an integrated curriculum framework developed to support the teaching of climate change through biodiversity and ecosystems in Malaysian secondary schools. The curriculum was developed as part of a PhD project using a design-based research approach informed by curriculum analysis, teacher perspectives, and iterative refinement.
The session aims to support secondary science teachers and curriculum developers in exploring practical approaches for integrating climate change concepts within existing science and geography topics. Participants will be introduced to the structure of the curriculum framework, including integrated learning objectives, inquiry-based learning approaches, differentiated learning strategies, and examples of classroom activities.
Examples from selected lesson plans and teaching materials will be shared to demonstrate how biodiversity and ecosystems can be connected meaningfully to climate change using local environmental contexts and real-world environmental issues. The session will also discuss practical considerations identified during teacher piloting and curriculum refinement, including curriculum alignment, classroom feasibility, and interdisciplinary integration.
Participants will have opportunities for brief reflection and discussion on how similar approaches could be adapted within their own educational contexts.
Participants will:
- identify practical approaches for integrating biodiversity and climate change concepts within secondary science education - explore curriculum integration strategies and lesson design approaches - reflect on teacher-informed approaches to climate change education - consider how curriculum materials could be adapted for their own contexts
Every child deserves to see themselves and their cultures reflected in science. This interactive session offers a practical framework for doing that, without adding pressure to an already full curriculum. We'll introduce "two-eyed seeing" and share six dimensions of holistic science learning, then move quickly into short hands-on tasks. You'll sit briefly in a yarning-circle-inspired opener, try a story-to-science mapping using the emu life-cycle example, sketch a seasonal plan around a "class tree", audit a familiar lesson using nature-as-teacher prompts (symbiosis, hedgehog foraging, squirrels storing acorns), and rewrite a paragraph of planning language to shift from "resources" towards respect, reciprocity and responsibility. You'll leave with an A4 planning mat, a sensitivity checklist, and at least one concrete change you can make to next week's science lesson.
The aims of this session are to: •Explain the principle of ‘two-eyed seeing’ and why it strengthens primary science. •Explore six dimensions of holistic scientific literacy. •Participate in practical activities to showcase how six dimensions of scientific literacy can be embedded in the primary science curriculum. •Apply a simple cultural-sensitivity checklist when planning.
Outcomes: Participants will leave able to articulate two-eyed seeing to a colleague, integrate at least one Indigenous or local knowledge example into an existing science unit, apply a cultural-sensitivity checklist when planning, and use relational language that positions children as part of, not separate from, nature.
Background This session draws on our work at UCL and experience working in Jamaica, Singapore, The Gambia, Japan, Senegal and Australia, synthesised in our recent research in planetary-conscious pedagogy (Strachan & Markwick, 2025). It has been shaped by classroom practice, conversations with community knowledge holders, and research on science capital (Godec et al., 2017), storytelling in science (Salehjee, 2020; Fishman, 2020), and two-eyed seeing (Hatcher et al., 2009). We approach the examples with humility, acknowledging that all knowledge, including modern science, is interpreted through a cultural lens.
If you are a science technician, come along to the "Meet the Technicians Committee" session at the end of Friday of Annual Conference 2027.
Got a question? Ever wondered about what goes on behind the scenes? Ever thought about getting involved in Committee activities? Are you wanting to know more about Professional Registration or writing an article for one of the ASE journals or webpages, or presenting at one of our events and sharing your practice?
We look forward to meeting you and helping with your queries!
Chair of ASE Technicians Committe / Senior Science Technician, The Orme Academy
I've been a school science technician since 2010, currently a senior science technician at The Orme Academy part of Shaw Education Trust, previous to this I was a senior analytical chemist in the pharmaceutical industry.
I have also worked alongside STEM learning as a lead PDL... Read More →
