On Friday Suzanne Thorne and I presented a session on developing green skills in the geography curriculum. One of the many brilliant things about the conference this year was the emphasis on the importance of geography for the future - hence the conference strapline of 'Geography Makes A Difference'.

Suzanne and I started the conference on Thursday listening to the brilliant panel discussion led by Rob from Time For Geography which focused on aspirational careers linked to geography - it was a really interesting chat about many careers that a lot of our students would be completely oblivious to. However, we chose to frame our presentation differently in order to avoid repetition of other sessions, but also to reinforce the idea that green skills are important to so many careers paths, that many of us wouldn't necessarily link to geography.

These two quotes show just how important geography is to future careers...

"The solutions to the climate crisis require the expansion of green technology, and this in turn is creating new industries and jobs, and affecting nearly all sectors of the economy. If young people are to make the most of these opportunities, it is crucial that they acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to do so." (Building a world-class curriculum for all - Curriculum and Assessment Review Final Report).

"Skills England has emphasised that the transition to net zero is likely to affect one in five jobs, yet despite employment in green industries growing rapidly, awareness of green jobs among young people remains low, with less than half (47%) of secondary students and learners saying they have heard of green job opportunities". (Skills England: Driving growth and widening opportunities).

As part of the presentation we have designed a set of posters that are free to download and showcase 32 different careers where green skills are really important - some of them are clearly geography-based, such as ecologist and forest ranger, but many of them are not. The posters outline what the roles entail, along with where green skills fit in and what green skills would be used. You can download the set for free here.

We also designed three ready-to-use decision-making activities that you can use with your students to get them to think about the practical implementation of their green skills. Each activity has a series of tasks for students to work through that builds up to a decision-making task where they are given a budget and a series of options to work through. Of course these activities are nothing revolutionary - however it is all about framing them in a way to highlight the importance of green skills, rather than just introducing them as a group work problem-solving exercise as we have traditionally framed activities like this.

The links for each activity are here - and they are completely free to download...

Urban Heat Mitigation Specialist Decision Making Exercise

Energy Use Data Analyst Decision Making Exercise

Coastal Protection Specialist Decision Making Exercise

I will just end with another quote in summary...

“Geography teachers have highlighted the importance of pupils developing core geographical skills - particularly geospatial, decision-making and green skills. When planned effectively, high-quality fieldwork offers a ‘real world’ opportunity for students to build disciplinary capabilities and subject understanding in Geography, with fieldwork enquiry also opening doors to the development of wider skills such as data collection, analysis and problem-solving.” (Building a world-class curriculum for all - Curriculum and Assessment Review Final Report).