Teaching sustainability and climate change in Canada and Norway

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Abstract

This article examines how sustainability and climate change are positioned and enacted in lower secondary classrooms in Newfoundland and Labrador (Canada) and Finnmark (Norway). Guided by each jurisdiction’s curriculum, we ask how teachers understand the curricular place of these topics and how they describe teaching them in practice. The study employs a qualitative design, consisting of one focus group with Canadian teachers and three individual interviews with Norwegian teachers. Findings indicate that both systems signal sustainability as an interdisciplinary priority; however, classroom uptake is concentrated in science/natural science, with other subjects participating through teacher initiative. Teachers relied on low-overhead, place-responsive routines—such as gardening and hydroponics cycles, short outdoor inquiries, large-format mapping, and local energy or food system tasks—that fit existing timetables and made participation visible. Spread was constrained by timetable rigidity and thin cross-subject assessment structures. We contribute practical implications for timetable design, shared assessment artefacts, and partnership infrastructures that distribute responsibility beyond single teachers or subjects.

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Keywords

comparative study, core and subject curriculum, climate change, natural sciences

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