Italy is set to become the first country to include must circular for schools that focuses on studying the climate crisis.
According to NowThis, students of all grades in state schools will be required to have 33 hours per year of courses that incorporate climate change, sustainability, and environmental footprints. Traditional subjects will also incorporate elements of climate study like geography, math, and physics.
The plan comes as youth around the world have been mobilizing and protesting lawmakers’ inaction on the climate crisis. Thousand’s participated in a global climate march in September.
Education Minister of Italy, Lorenzo Fioramonti said in a tweet that he wants “Italy to become a leader against climate change.” Reuters reported that the entire ministry is being changed to make sustainability and climate the center of the education model.
NowThis reported that Lorenzo happens to be a professor of economics at South Africa’s Pretoria University and has written books about the gross domestic product no longer needing to be the country’s main source of success.
A panel of experts will help build the new curriculum, including Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of Columbia University’s Center for Sustainable Development, and American writer and economic and social theorist, Jeremy Rifkin.
One behalf of Lorenzo, the spokesperson said the idea of the new course study is to get young people ready for a climate emergency in the future.
