Young people are key stakeholders in the future, but their stake is rarely considered in decision making and policy development. In this paper we explore how climate change education can allow the voices of young people to be listened to and help young people imagine desirable futures and develop agency to address the steps, both personal and policy based, that are needed to achieve this. Initially reporting on the findings of a survey of 985 young people (aged 7–18 years from across the UK), we explore what young people currently know about climate change. Informed by this data, we then present a creative approach to backcasting, using a participatory action pedagogical approach to explore the desired futures that 150 young people aged 8–11 years have about the fast fashion industry. We suggest that within the context of fast fashion and other climate related industries, such a methodology could enable educators to address climate change without provoking eco-anxiety and provide a way that decision makers in industry and government can listen to young people’s voices.

Supporting young people with global crises mitigation strategies is essential, yet loaded with ethical dilemmas for the educator. This study explores whether young people will make ethical decisions regarding the sustainability of food choice in schools, and based on the processes identified, what educators’ needs are in supporting transformative learning. This study is the first of its kind, where young people under the age of 14 have been tasting edible insects and discussing their role in a more sustainable diet. The article draws on mixed‐method research with over 180 young people and their teachers in three schools in Wales and examines responses to a possible introduction of edible insects into school canteens. Highlighted is the complexity of sustainable food choices—likely to be identifiable with other young people and educators in western countries. The article considers how educators and policy makers may need to frame routes to positive sustainable action and the associated impacts these may have on personal, social, political and environmental spheres.

In 2019 India was ranked seventh most affected nation by climate change, yet 65 per cent of the Indian population had not heard of climate change. India’s revised National Education Policy mentions climate change and environmental issues as part of its work towards reaching the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. However, to date, climate education in India has tended to remain the responsibility of the secondary science teacher in many schools where resources are limited. Following calls for a more holistic and multidisciplinary approach – where students can link environmental issues with their lives – we reflect on three arts-based climate education exemplars with students from the East Kolkata Wetlands (EKW) (n = 150, 10–17-year-olds). We consider how these frame climate change and sustainable education as a collective learning experience, rather than as scientific concepts alone. We respond to Szczepankiewicz et al.’s model for climate education and propose that teacher training in the EKW context can be conceptualised through a three-stage, interconnected approach to pedagogy: building concepts, learning through hands-on activities and building communities is central. We suggest that these three generalisable tenets of student teacher practice should be explored in other areas of ecological fragility, as well as in spaces of economic insecurity.

Western European populations are being encouraged to reconsider their diets in light of population growth and the associated intensification of farming systems. In addition, health concerns associated with diets high in sugar, salt and saturated fat are stimulating interest in alternative foods. Including insects in human diets may be one option to help feed a growing population more sustainably, but it comes with its own challenges. This paper reflects on a pilot project introducing edible insects into primary and secondary schools in Wales, UK. Using Bakhtin’s concept of the carnivalesque as a lens for reflection, the difficulties of introducing a novel food are considered and we provide an insight into how more sustainable, fringe practices may be framed in ways that allow them to be normalised.

This paper evaluates an Environmental Education programme where the barriers and opportunities for professional development, access to specialist resources, provision through technology and partnership are considered within the context of Wales and the demands of a new curriculum. The findings reflect on the first three years of an education programme that uses a Theory of Change framework to plan for learning with 9–11 year olds in Wales, UK. Drawing on qualitative individual and group interviews with teachers and pupils across six schools, the successes and challenges of this framework are presented. I suggest that combining a Theory of Change framework with a Capability Approach—focussing on values and agency—offers a more useful planning tool for curriculums developing strategies where teacher agency is encouraged—compared to using one approach alone.

This paper presents an overview of the arts‐based methodology used in a research project that aimed to explore the impact of the lived experiences of racism on 10‐ and 11‐year‐old children in the United Kingdom. The research responds to the relative lack of literature concerning the racialised experiences of young children. We discuss how we developed the arts‐based method of body mapping as an ethical approach to foregrounding the children's voices. We consider that this approach contributes to knowledge and understanding about exploring the nuanced and complex relationship between the children's external worlds and their internal feelings, and supporting them to process and communicate this. We suggest that the method presented is transferable, and present our ethically engaged, arts‐based planning framework that can be used if others wish to adopt this way of working.