Extreme E and UNICEF roll out climate change education resources on Greenland’s National Climate Week 06.10.2021: As part of the one-year collaboration between Extreme E and UNICEF, the child rights agency created education resources, aimed at empowering young changemakers by reimagining climate education. During a national teachers’ seminar between September 8th and

As part of the one-year collaboration between Extreme E and UNICEF, the child rights agency created education resources, aimed at empowering young changemakers by reimagining climate education. During a national teachers’ seminar between September 8th and 9th, the education resources were shared with roughly 90 teachers from across Greenland in order to prepare teaching during the Climate Week.



Climate Week commenced on September 27th and took place over a five-day period. 25 schools in Greenland participated in the Climate Week, teaching the climate change education resources to approximately 2,000 young people aged between 14 and 16.



Divided into two phases, the first part of the Week focused on knowledge building, with young people understanding the fundamentals of climate change globally, alongside key articles within the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and broader examples of climate activism. As part of the knowledge building exercises, UNICEF shared conversations with young people in five different regions of Greenland, explaining how climate change affects their region.



The second part of the Week focused on reflection exercises with the young people, who then created their own projects on how they plan to tackle climate change and reduce CO2 emissions, culminating in a presentation at the end of the week to their peers with clear climate commitments and goals for the future.



Maliina Abelsen, Head of Programmes at UNICEF in Greenland, said: “The climate crisis is a child rights crisis that prevents a child’s basic rights from being met. These rights include the right to water, clean air, health, education, nutrition, protection and even their survival. Climate change will affect children throughout their lifecycle and accordingly, is a direct threat to their ability to survive, grow, and thrive.



“At UNICEF, we believe it’s crucial that children understand and are able to contribute towards issues that affect them. As children and young people have reminded us over the recent years, they are powerful agents of change who can mobilise much-needed change, when they are informed of and involved in the key debates of their time. We, and the partners we work with in Greenland, are thrilled to contribute to excellent climate education resources and have received encouraging feedback from teachers who are excited to start teaching in Climate Week.”



Throughout the partnership between Extreme E and UNICEF, which comes to an end with the Climate Week, the two organisations aimed for young people from Greenland and internationally to understand the variation in landscape, climate, way of life and the impact of climate change in different regions in Greenland, while motivating young people to tackle climate change in Greenland.




Julia Fry - photos Extreme E