Climate Change Education for Children in Nigeria

Climate Change Education for Children in Nigeria

Children in Nigeria need to learn about the effects of climate change and the best ways to adapt and lessen its effects in order for the country to develop in a sustainable way. Climate change is due to natural and human causes (UN, 2020). Global warming endangers life. Clean air, healthy water, enough food, and safe places to live are all affected. Changes in climate induce heat waves and harsh weather, poor air quality, vector migration, and an increase in water and environmental diseases. Climate change has a huge effect on schoolchildren, facilities, and activities, as well as on how many kids go to school and how well they learn. Education is the key to building a strong society and taking our country to new heights. Education for the long-term growth of our country’s many sectors will require learning throughout life (Mallumo, Igbe, & Mallumo, 2018). This formal or informal education for life will help Nigerian children grow and develop in their mental, emotional, spiritual, and social lives. Lifelong learning makes sure that every child grows up to be a responsible member of the community who makes a meaningful contribution to the sustainable development of the nation and community. Continuous learning, which commences in the cradle, gives children the skills they need to stand up and be heard in the search for ways to address issues like climate change, and environmental pollution. Climate change education is crucial. It helps kids understand global warming and how to fight it. It helps them adapt to climate change by changing their attitudes and behaviours. Investing in today’s children’s education is a smart way to protect our future. Our students must be well-informed on climate change and related national and global challenges to thrive in the current world. Every Nigerian child has prospects that must be developed via education to maximize profit and national resilience. Nigeria takes climate change seriously. Climate change affects global sustainability, livelihood, and human cohabitation.

Effects Of Climate Change on Nigerian Children

The world’s 2.3 billion children make up 30% of the world’s population, and this number is growing. This means that they are the largest group of people who will be affected by climate change. Children are also more likely to suffer from its bad effects than adults are. Many kids born in the twenty-first century will have a lot of choices that their parents didn’t have. Even though there have been improvements in child survival and development over the last few decades, climate change is a global problem that has the potential to wipe out all of these improvements and make future risks much higher (Elisha et al., 2017). Climate change hurts children’s most basic rights and puts their lives and health at risk. Floods and severe storms, drought and water stress, heat stress, air pollution, and changes in how diseases spread in different places are all major climate-related risks that can have a big effect on children. It should be noted that climate change could push a child into poverty. This is particularly so in cases where the child loses their sponsors to floods or other climate related disasters, following this, the child would be pushed to live in uncertainties. In the same vein, injuries sustained by children during floods, storms, and exposure to severe heat could be infected and ensue in the child’s death (UNECA, 2005). Children who are victims of flooding could end up contacting typhoid, cold, and cholera due to exposure to unclean water (Osuafor and Nnorom, 2014). Notably, children who end up on the streets because of climate change may engage in vices which are detrimental to the country’s image and economy. It is important to note that climate change results in food insecurity which in turn reduces a child’s access to enough quality food (Enete, 2014). Accordingly, these children end up malnourished and they could become sick. Food insecurity affects the Nigerian economy negatively (Ebele & Emodi, 2016).Children residing in rural areas lacking a reliable means of transportation would be unable to access their school during flooding. This would result in absenteeism which would affect the child’s academic performance. Also, the schools could be destroyed during flooding and land slides.in other words, climate change affects a child’s right to education.

Climate Change education

Global warming and pollutants make climate change education essential for youth development. Nigerian kids need climate change education to thrive in a polluted world. UNESCO’s Climate Change Education for Sustainable Development initiative promotes climate change education as part of the international response to climate change. The initiative attempts to improve young people’s “climate literacy”. It does this through increasing Member States’ capacity to provide excellent climate change education, fostering new teaching methodologies to incorporate climate change education in schools, and improving quasi education programs via multimedia, networking, and collaborations.

Young Nigerians can learn about climate change through poetry. It can also moderate and adapt to climate change. Poetry is charming. We can teach the right attitudes and actions to protect the environment from biodiversity loss and global warming by using poetry in climate change education. Poetry is an effective response to climate change. It can aid individuals in comprehending how climate change and global warming affect them, change attitudes, and reduce and adapt to climate change for global sustainability. Numerous institutions in Africa and beyond have found that poetry helps students and teachers understand climate change and devise adaptation and mitigation methods. Poetry encourages natural rhythms, writing, creative language, and self-expression. In environmental issues education, poems boost creativity and climate knowledge. It also improves climate change education at various institutions. Poetry promotes Nigerian teens’ development. In the same vein, teaching children about climate change while they are young would be instrumental to raising a generation that has the climate in mind. In other words, their future decisions would be climate inclined. Accordingly, the medium of learning through poems would be experiential and the children would remember. It should be noted that the survival of every country is related to climate issues. In this regard, making climate centric decisions such as training children on climate change would have a positive impact on Nigeria’s development. Put differently, incorporating a culture that protects the climate is pivotal to Nigeria’s development (Ololube, 2008). It is important to note that cultural practices in Nigeria allow parents to share virtues to their children through stories and songs. in the same vein, children can still be enlightened through this traditional means. A curriculum change is needed to integrate climate change into the academic process (Amanchukwu, Amadi-Ali, & Ololube, 2015). In the same vein, children should be equipped with the right apparatus to practice what they have learnt. This implies a shift from theory to practice.

Recommendations

There is a need for a strategic collaboration between the government and non-governmental organizations in order to assist children impacted by climate change. Nigeria should invest in research aimed at the development of sustainable energy. In Nigeria, climate change education should be integrated into all levels of schooling. The study reveals that teaching Nigerian children about climate change through poetry could be one of the most effective ways to increase climate change mitigation and adaptation. Similarly, climate change education would produce a more informed and resilient workforce. Due to the benefits, climate change education, including climate change poetry, should be introduced into the curricula of our elementary schools, secondary schools, and universities. For the purpose of educating about climate change and supporting sustainable development, Nigerian children should be encouraged to be creative and to excel in acquiring the necessary aesthetic skills in poetry. In addition, a proper venue for Nigerian children to share their perspectives and experiences about climate change and global warming should be established. Children should be encouraged to use their ability to generate climate-sensitive ideas and creations.

References

Amanchukwu, R., Amadi-Ali, T., Ololube, N. (2015). Climate change education in Nigeria: The role of curriculum review. Education, 5(3), 71-79.

Elisha, I. et al. (2017). Evidence of climate change and adaptation strategies among grain farmers in Sokoto State, Nigeria. IOSR Journal of Environmental Science, Toxicology and Food Technology (IOSR-JESTFT), 11(3), 1-7.

Ebele, N., Emodi, N. (2016). Climate change and its impact on Nigerian economy. Journal of Scientific Research and Reports, 10(6), 1-13.

Enete I. (2014). Impacts of climate change on agricultural production in Enugu State, Nigeria. Journal of Earth Science & Climatic Change, 5(9), 234.

Mallumo, D., Igbe, S., Mallumo, P. (2018). Climate change education for sustainable development lessons for Nigeria. In Leal Fiho, W. (eds) Handbook of climate change Resilience. Springer, Cham, pg 1-14.

Ololube (2008). Evaluation competencies of professional and non-professional teachers in Nigeria. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 34(1), 44-51).

Osuafor, A., and Nnorom, N. (2014). Impact of Climate Change on Food Security in Nigeria. AFRREV STECH, 3(1).

The United Nations (2020). What is climate change? Retrieve 27th September 2020 from https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/what-is-climate-change

UNECA (2005). Assessing sustainable development in Africa: Africa’s sustainable development bulletin. United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.