PLanetary Accounting FOR Schools
Project overview
Communities, and especially rangatahi, are concerned about state of the environment, and want to take action. However, they lack the knowledge they need to enact effective change.
In 2024, the Queenstown Lakes District Council and Central Lakes Trust funded the Planetary Accounting Network (PAN) to pilot a scalable education programme with the learning material, and teaching resources needed to empower teachers and students to take action towards a healthy planet. The programme was co-designed with teachers such that content can be incorporated into a broad spectrum of the curriculum in an adaptable way. It was successfully piloted at Mount Aspiring College with >180 Year 8 students and is now being scaled out to other high schools.
APPROACH
A programme outline comprising 4 key modules (Planetary Limits, Air, Land, and Water) was designed with input from teachers from Mount Aspiring College to highlight knowledge gaps to address, and support integration with the national curriculum. PAN then created tools and resources for the first two modules (Planetary Limits and Air) which were piloted by the teachers with over 180 Year 8 students.
The Pilot resources include:
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4 x ~20-25min Classroom Videos (equivalent to ~12-16 hours of classroom learning hours), covering;
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An Introduction to the Planetary Boundaries,
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The ‘Air’ impacts; climate change, the ozone layer, and air quality,
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Activity and Questions Packs, which accompany the videos to support student learning and classroom discussions,
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Supplementary Resources to support optional Professional Development for teachers. This includes links to further reading materials, videos e.g., TedX Talks, and online interactive platforms e.g., Land Air Water Aotearoa Dashboard which can help facilitate classroom discussions.
The videos and activities were designed so that they could be used over multiple lessons, allowing teachers to stop / start as needed. For example, in the pilot the Video 1 An Introduction to the Planetary Boundaries was played over four lessons (~45mins-1hour each), over two weeks.
Snapshots of the content are shown below.
To read more about our programme, access our Planetary Accounting for Schools Summary Report from our PAN member's space. If you’re interested in joining us for the next stage or would like more information, email learn@planetaryaccounting.org
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