From Climate Awareness to Collective Action

This episode explores various angles of climate change: from Canadians’ perceptions and the shifting realities of teaching and learning, to advocating for improved working conditions and mitigating its impacts. 

Featuring: 

• Jenn Stevens, President and CEO of Learning for a Sustainable Future (LSF) and survey co-author
• Dr. Karen Acton, LSF Research Consultant and survey co-author; Assistant professor in Educational Leadership and Policy at OISE
• Clint Johnston, CTF/FCE President
• Sarah Lowes, Chair of the CTF/FCE Work Group on Climate Change and member of ETFO
• Selina Pellerin, PEITF Director Economic Welfare and Member Services

This episode was recorded between Feb. 6–27, 2026.

Learn more

• LSF National Survey, Programs, Resources for Rethinking
• Abacus Data Article on Precarity Mindset
• Climate Atlas of Canada, CCUNESCO, Project Drawdown, Outdoor Learning School, Indigenous Climate Hub
• Teacher Collective Bargaining Conference
• ATA Magazine feature article (p.18-28)
• Biosphère: The Amazing Earth – a ready-to-use educational kit

(Cet épisode est en anglais, mais il s’accompagne d’un résumé en français et en anglais.)

De la conscience climatique à l’action collective

Cet épisode explore les changements climatiques sous divers angles : de leurs impacts sur l’enseignement et l’apprentissage aux perceptions du public à leur égard, en passant par l’atténuation de leurs effets et la revendication de meilleures conditions de travail.

L’épisode a été enregistré entre le 6 et le 27 fév. 2026.

Pour en savoir plus

• Sondage national, programmes et Ressources de LST
• Atlas climatique du Canada, Commission canadienne de l’UNESCO
• Conférence sur la négociation collective dans le milieu enseignant
• Biosphère :

The Source podcast is produced by the CTF/FCE in Ottawa, on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe People. | La balado Source est produite à Ottawa, sur le territoire traditionnel non cédé du peuple algonquin anichinabé, par la CTF/FCE.

Follow us on social media | Suivez-nous : Facebook @CTF.FCE, Instagram @ctffce, Bluesky, X @CTFFCE

Views expressed do not necessarily represent the policies nor the views of the CTF/FCE. | Les points de vue exprimés dans cet épisode ne représentent pas forcément les principes directeurs ou les points de vue de la CTF/FCE.

Transcript

**This transcript was automatically generated using Descript. Although there has been some minor human revision of the transcript, the accuracy of machine generated captions varies depending on the audio quality, topic and speaker and therefore are unlikely to be 100% accurate.**

Julieanna Mawko: The reality of the climate crisis is evident. From flooding to wildfires to extreme heat – these issues are impacting our schools.

The uncertainty about the future of our planet is causing anxiety for both kids and adults.

We must work together to ensure that Canada remains a liveable country, so our youngest citizens can thrive well into the future.

Welcome to SOURCE, a podcast by the Canadian Teachers’ Federation, produced on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe People.

I’m your host, Julieanna Mawko, with the CTF/FCE Public Affairs team. In this episode, we’ll examine the various angles of climate change through discussing:

Canadians’ perceptions of climate change;

Its effects on our schools, and

An example of how teachers’ unions are advocating for improved classroom conditions.

This episode begins with a conversation exploring the multi-year national surveys on climate change and education with Learning for a Sustainable Future (or LSF for short). Our special guests include: Jenn Stevens, President and CEO of LSF and survey co-author, along with Dr. Karen Acton, LSF Research Consultant and survey co-author, as well as Assistant Professor in Educational Leadership and Policy at OISE at the University of Toronto.

Let’s hear about the insights from their survey and recommendations to turn awareness into action.

Julieanna Mawko: Hello and welcome, Jenn and Dr. Acton.

Thank you so much for joining us to share some of the key findings from Learning for Sustainable Futures National Surveys. So to start us off, can you please give us a brief overview of the surveys?

Jenn Stevens: Yeah. Hi, and thank you so much for having us. So, to provide a bit of context the mission of LSF, or Learning for a Sustainable Future, is to promote the knowledge, skills, values, practices needed to support a sustainable world. We are living in unprecedented times. Yet, there remains hope And importantly, there are solutions. While there are many surveys that address climate change specifically, there are very few that focus on education, and that's the gap that really we were aiming to address with our survey.

With funding from Environment and Climate Change Canada and in collaboration with Leger Research Intelligence, we conducted a series of three surveys beginning in 2019.

The latest survey from “Awareness to Action: Canadians on Climate Change and Education” had over 4,200 responses from Canadians in every province. So specifically, we targeted four key respondent groups that were educators. Students in grades seven through 12 parents and the general public.

Global organizations such as UNESCO have consistently identified education as one of the most powerful tools that we have to address the climate crisis. It not only helps students understand what's happening but also empowers them to think critically and engage constructively.

Julieanna Mawko: Absolutely. So you'd mentioned that these surveys were conducted in 2019, 2022 and 2025. And we know a lot has happened in Canada and around the world over those years.

Based on this data, what is happening across Canada when it comes to climate knowledge and what has changed since 2019 or 2022?

Dr. Karen Acton: Well there's good news and there's also not so good news. So let me start with the positive news. And what's especially important for teachers to know, and it's that Canadians are highly supportive and incorporating climate change education in classrooms. And they believe it should be a high priority. Survey was really clear about that. Most Canadians also believe that climate education should be the responsibility of all teachers, so not just science and geography teachers. And this provides strong justification for teachers in every grade who are already teaching, or those who want to teach sustainability education.

And among the teachers who say they're already covering climate change, it was really great to see that many are already using those effective student-centered teaching strategies, such as encouraging students to undertake hands-on action projects and adopting a solutions-focused approach. And most teachers feel that even young students are developmentally ready to learn about climate change issues. And they mentioned things like green energy, biodiversity, overconsumption and [3:00] extreme weather.

However, I mentioned that there's not so good news. Climate knowledge has decreased as captured by a 10-question quiz that we embedded in our surveys. So starting back in 2019, 57% of the participants passed, and in 2022, we were really excited to see the pass rate jumped to 67%. But this disappointingly dropped back down to 57% in 2025,

Julieanna Mawko: okay. And I'm curious to know, do you have an idea of what might have contributed to that increase and then back down to baseline in 2025?

Dr. Karen Acton: You're asking a really nicely multifaceted phenomenon question, I think here. So our survey results themselves didn't reveal reasons for the dip, but we definitely looked into that. And this overall all decline of climate change engagement, it really isn't unique to our survey. It actually seems to be a global trend. So some people point to other competing priorities taking over, such as people being increasingly concerned with economic hardships, right? You hear about the price of groceries, the fact that people can't get homes. But to be clear, while competing pressures are shifting some people's priorities, we want to make sure that people understand the main message is still, despite all these other pressing concerns, it's amazing that most Canadians still remain firmly committed to tackling climate change, particularly by educating our youth.

Julieanna Mawko: A quick note that Abacus Data has been tracking what they're calling “the precarity mindset”. The show notes have a link to an article which provides some data on WHY Canadians are potentially decreasing in their climate knowledge. Now, back to the interview.

Dr. Karen Acton: And just as another thing in any discussion, when you talk about knowledge dips, you really need to acknowledge and recognize that role of that increasingly widespread and troubling misinformation and disinformation phenomenon. Right? We found that many Canadians struggle to distinguish between real and fake climate information and only 17% reported feeling confident in their ability to do so. So it's really not surprising that the majority of Canadians, and especially educators, they believe that climate education should place a strong emphasis on critical thinking to learn how to identify and counter false information.

Julieanna Mawko: So you'd mentioned educators there, and let's kind of change gears to their perspective.

What were some of the barriers that they identified in the survey?

Dr. Karen Acton: I'm really glad you're asking this question because we need to know where targeted support is needed. But first it's really important, before I start to speak on this, we need to recognize that the limited attention to climate change and sustainability education in schools is very much not the fault of teachers.

So we know the actual number of hours devoted to climate change remains far too low. But what else is holding teachers back?

And in short teaching climate change is far more complex and politically charged than teaching I don't know, regular subjects like math or reading.

And the teachers were very clear about what they need. Climate change education cannot be another one of those add-ons. They have enough curriculum to deal with already. It needs to be integrated holistically as a lens through which subject matter is taught. So teachers said they need more time. Time to learn about the issues and time in the classroom to teach, and of course, not surprisingly, they're asking for more professional learning opportunities and more classroom ready resources.

Julieanna Mawko: Absolutely. We're hearing that a lot in our surveying of our members, the need for more time for various things. So thank you for underlining that. Now we'll shift gears to Canadian's perception of climate change. What did the survey reveal in terms of what Canadians think about climate change?

Dr. Karen Acton: Yeah. It's really heartening to see that the large majority of Canadians, 80%, they acknowledge that climate change is happening, and they also feel strongly that people have failed to care for the planet.

And when asked if they were willing to make changes in their own lives to address climate change, it was amazing, a resounding 87% said yes. What is also notable is we saw that less than 20% of Canadians believe that governments are effectively addressing climate change. And at the same time, most Canadians recognize that systemic change is essential to tackling climate challenges. So I wanted to point out this disconnect between public expectations and political action because it's actually really important. It suggests that people are not disengaged, rather they're asking for more and they're expecting more.

Julieanna Mawko: And we're also curious to know how many Canadians reported personally experiencing the effects of climate change.

Dr. Karen Acton: I'm not surprised you're asking that question, right. Here in Canada, given the increase in the severe storms and wildfires and flooding and prolonged heat waves across Canada. So yes, more Canadians report having personally experienced the effects of climate change, that figure now stands at 44% and that's up from 36% in 2022.

But at the same time, there's this paradox, a few more Canadians believe that the seriousness of climate change is exaggerated and slightly fewer Canadians acknowledge that we're experiencing a climate emergency. It's really odd, but again, this dip isn't unique to Canada and it reflects that broader global trend, and it's also underscoring now more than ever, the need to address that misinformation and false narratives we were talking about.

Julieanna Mawko: I see. So there's a clear gap between what people are experiencing and what they're willing to call an emergency. To dig into that a bit more, how do Canadians actually feel about climate change right now?

Dr. Karen Acton: Yeah. It's important to note that over two thirds of Canadians believe that the work and voices of young people can inspire meaningful climate action. And this view is held most strongly by the educators and the students themselves.

But with this information, it's important to approach it with caution because while young people can be powerful catalysts for change, [9:00] that older generation, you know, we must take responsibility and support their ideas rather than leaving the burden on youth to solve these problems alone. And I say this because one reason this caution is so important is that our survey shows young people are experiencing negative eco-emotions. They're experiencing high levels of anxiety, along with fear and frustration. And keeping climate change out of schools is actually misguided because many students, even at a very young age, they're hearing about climate change and many are already experiencing the effects of climate change. So we need age-appropriate climate change education that helps students feel informed, supported, and especially empowered because we know when they feel empowered, this helps to mitigate this anxiety.

Julieanna Mawko: Yeah, absolutely. Youth need to be equipped with the right tools to help navigate what they're experiencing. And so to paint a clear picture of this landscape, you mentioned that you surveyed four distinct groups, so the general public, parents, students, and educators. Can you share some of the standout takeaways from each of those groups and how those findings vary?

Jenn Stevens: Yes, great question. So when we look at the population groups, educators were the most likely to say that climate change poses a risk to Canadians and were the most willing to change their own lives to help reduce the effects of climate change.

Students, on the other hand express the strongest belief that new technologies can solve climate change. And there are tons of other demographic differences that I could speak to, but I'll just encourage the listeners to check out the full report.

Julieanna Mawko: Absolutely. So to wrap this up, let's talk about the path forward.

What were some of the recommendations from students, educators and Canadians?

Jenn Stevens: Canadians are asking for climate education that is science-based, solutions focused and action oriented. They want climate education to not only address the science, but to look at the social, the economic and political impacts of climate change.

And as Karen mentioned, teachers are asking for more professional development, more resources and more time. With only 22% of teachers feeling supported by their principal or school board, they're also asking for a shift towards a more school-wide supportive culture. And young people, we asked a specific question: what would you tell your teachers that you want to learn? And students ask for a lot more climate education in all grades, including the causes and the consequences and opportunities, not surprisingly to take action using real world solutions.

Julieanna Mawko: So what's next? And to make a nod to the title of the report, how do we translate Awareness into Action?

Jenn Stevens: Yes, that title was deliberate. We wanted to talk about what's next. So, we certainly feel that it's imperative we take action on the compelling recommendations from these survey results. And we also conducted some provincial knowledge mobilization sessions to get input from stakeholders across Canada, and we're creating some purposeful action plans. So stay tuned on those.

But what was made abundantly clear is that provincial ministries of education must step up and update curriculum documents to embed sustainability learning into all grades. However, we know that these updates can be sporadic. So it's also important that boards and districts of education in Canada take a leading role.

Teacher champions exist in virtually every school, but they can't do this alone. Climate education really needs to be prioritized by the directors, superintendents and principals, the good news is that there are some exemplary school boards and districts moving in this direction, embedding sustainability goals into strategic plans you know, hiring staff to oversee this implementation.

Teacher federations, of course, also have an important role to play in supporting their members.

And to help teachers translate awareness into action, it's important for them to also know what supports already exist out there and what amazing resources there are. So there are so many organizations that are offering high quality resources.

Some examples include the Climate Atlas of Canada, CCUNESCO, Project Drawdown, the Outdoor Learning School and Indigenous Climate Hub and many more.

And I'll just take a moment to share a little bit about what LSF has to offer too. We've been listening closely to what teachers are asking for, and we have so many supports and resources in response.

For instance, professional development offerings, youth forums, action project funding for students, and we maintain a comprehensive resource database called Resources4Rethinking. And this includes lesson plans, outdoor activities videos, apps, games, and more. And they're all reviewed by Teachers, for Teachers.

We also offer some climate learning guides with inquiry-based lessons and our Sustainable Future Schools program supports whole school integration. So all of these supports and more they're available on our website. And, please feel free to reach out to us directly to let us know how we can help.

Julieanna Mawko: Thank you so much for that. We'll be sure to link that in the description so listeners can take a look for themselves. So thank you so much for joining us, for sharing your findings. It's definitely given us a lot of food for thought and a better understanding of not only what's happening in the classroom, but around the country when it comes to climate change and education. So thank you so much.

Dr. Karen Acton: Thanks for having us.

Jenn Stevens: Thank you.

​ Julieanna Mawko: Now we’ll turn to Clint Johnston, CTF/FCE President, for a word on climate change mitigation across the country. ​

Clint Johnston: You know, it's one thing to talk about climate change education, to update the curriculum, to teach science, to help students understand carbon cycles and global systems, but we rarely think about what it means to teach and learn while you're actually living through the impacts of climate change.

It's not theoretical anymore, it's not a future scenario. It's happening in our schools right now and that's why this issue is top of mind for the Canadian Teachers’ Federation. In 2024 at our annual general meeting, which is our highest policymaking body delegates from across the country passed a resolution to establish a national work group on climate change.

The goal is simple but urgent to study how climate change is affecting public education and to clarify the role that public schools and teachers’ unions can play in addressing it. Because what we're seeing is not abstract. We're seeing above seasonal temperatures that are directly impacting classrooms.

In October, parts of Eastern Canada were reporting temperatures over 30 degrees Celsius with the humidex. Recently more than 20 cities in Alberta set new daytime high records with temperatures reaching 20 degrees in February. That's not a warm spell, that's an alarm bell right now. There are regulations in most jurisdictions that set minimum temperatures for classrooms.

We know how cold a classroom is allowed to be before it's considered unsafe. But there are no regulations for maximum temperatures. There is no clear standard for how hot is too hot for students and staff to safely learn and work, and Canadians understand that this is a problem. Our polling with Abacus Data in September 2025 found that 67% of Canadians support creating a national maximum temperature standard for K to 12 classrooms.

That tells us something important. People recognize that learning conditions matter and that climate change is no longer a distant environmental issue. It is a public education issue. Now we're also clear about something else. A sustainable future isn't about shutting down parts of our economy. It's about a fair and equitable transition.

It's about building systems that work for people, for workers, and for communities. While protecting the planet our students will inherit. We're living in a time of overlapping crises, affordability, housing, global instability. It can feel like climate change slips down the priority list unless there's a wildfire or a flood dominating the headlines.

But that's exactly why we need to keep it on the agenda because if we don't plan ahead, if we don't build resilience into our schools, in our communities, we are leaving future generations at the mercy of the unknown. This is about ensuring that students can learn safely that educators can work in environments that support their health and wellbeing, and that public education remains a cornerstone of strong, sustainable communities.

With that, I'll turn it over to Sarah Lowes, chair of the CTF/FCE, a work group on climate change, who will share more about the work of the group and her lived experience as a member of the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario.

Sarah Lowes: When we talk about climate change at the Canadian Teachers' Federation, we're really intentional about who's at the table. The CTF/FCE work group on climate change is made up of five educators from across the country, each rooted in very different provincial and local realities that diversity matters.

What climate change looks like in a northern community on the coast or in an urban school system isn't the same. And I think our work reflects that. But even with those differences, our vision is shared and very clear. Our mandate is to advance climate action, unity, and hope in pursuit of sustainability in education across Canada.

At its core, this is about ensuring that students today and future generations can count on the basics. We all depend on clean air, fresh water, nutritious soil, and thriving biodiversity. We also know this is a global crisis. No single sector can solve it alone, but educators and our unions have a unique and vital role to play.

Schools are where young people make sense of the world. They're inheriting, they're where values are shaped, questions are asked, and collective responsibility begins by engaging honestly. With climate change, we're not just responding to a crisis. We're helping to build the conditions for resilience, solidarity, and hope.

So it's fair to say that climate change has been affecting working and learning conditions in school for some time now. We see it in extreme heat, poor air quality, severe weather events, and in the strain. All of this is putting on aging school infrastructure. These aren't future concerns. They're already showing up in schools across the country.

We have classes experiencing 40-degree heat with the humidex students having heat strokes and classes that have to leave school buildings and walk to public libraries to escape the heat and continue their learning. And that's where collective bargaining becomes a powerful tool to try and counter these impacts.

That's why the work group is developing a green bargaining guide. It's one concrete way Educators are stepping up. This guide is designed to give bargainers the language frameworks and strategies they need to advance sustainability in public education. Importantly, this is a living document. We welcome contributions from across the country and we hope it will continue to evolve as we learn how to live, teach, and learn amid the shifting realities of our planet.

At its core, climate change is a health and safety issue where entire communities are displaced by wildfires or floods. Our collective agreements have to keep pace. Emergency leave provisions, for example, have to be strong enough to protect members when natural disasters disrupt families and schools.

This work is really about making sure our agreements reflect the world. Educators are actually living in.

As I've mentioned, the climate crisis is already happening in our classrooms. Educators are dealing with multiple challenges. For one, they're managing the very real physical disruptions caused by extreme weather, and then simultaneously supporting students who are struggling emotionally. We're seeing rising levels of eco anxiety.

Students feel afraid, sad, angry. And sometimes deeply helpless about the future as teachers help students make sense of those fears, they're carrying an intense emotional workload, adding strain to a profession that's already incredibly demanding. At the same time, teachers and education workers are uniquely positioned to build awareness and push for meaningful climate action Schools are community hubs.

Every day, educators see environmental conditions that affect students, staff, and families. The proximity gives us both insight and I would say responsibility. We also need to name the climate crisis for what it is beyond school walls. It's a human rights issue. Access to clean drinking water is a basic human right, and yet that right is still denied in so many places, particularly in Indigenous communities.

The ongoing lack of clean water in these communities is a clear example of environmental racism. In 2026, we are still relocating and displacing Indigenous communities due to inadequate clean water. We intentionally highlighted this in our vision because a sustainable future isn't possible without environmental justice.

That's why equity and climate justice in education can't be treated as separate conversations. Climate change disproportionately impacts marginalized communities, and collective bargaining can help make sure our responses are fair, inclusive, and grounded in local realities. Climate action and education has to work for everyone, or it just doesn't work at all.

Looking ahead. We want to see bargainers across the country continue to add climate language into local and provincial agreements. This work can't be isolated. It needs to become part of how we collectively define safe, healthy, and sustainable learning environments. As a work group, we're also shifting more deliberately into advocacy.

Historically, many standards have focused on minimum temperatures to determine whether schools can remain open. But in a warming climate, that framework is no longer enough. We're now pushing for maximum temperature thresholds. So Extreme heat doesn't put students and staff at risk. This is about adapting our protections to the realities educators are already facing, and making sure that our policies reflect the world as it is in the here and now.

Julieanna Mawko: Are you involved in collective bargaining If you’re interested in taking action to help future-proof education in a changing climate, check out the Teacher Collective Bargaining Conference. Co-hosted by the New Brunswick Teachers’ Federation, this 2-and-a-half-day conference takes place from June 4-6 in Fredericton. Registration is open until May 8, 2026. See the show notes for more details. 

Now, to close out this episode, let’s look at an example of turning advocacy into action. Selina Pellerin, Director of Economic Welfare and Member Services at the PEI Teachers’ Federation, joins us to share the journey that led to their “Keep Cool, Keep Learning” campaign.

Selina Pellerin: I'm just going to talk a little bit about the work of PEITF in terms of advocacy regarding heat in schools. We have done quite a bit of work on this culminating in a campaign that we call keep cool, keep learning but before then there's a good five years of work that led up to that particular campaign. I'll go through what we did during that time, not because it was particularly fruitful, but because it provides context and the rationale for us starting that particular campaign.

In June 2021, we had record temperatures in PEI. The thermometer reached 41 degrees in western PEI. It was close to that in the rest of the island. It was really unbearable for teachers and also for their students. And so I received phone calls from teachers who were experiencing symptoms such as dizziness or nausea or fatigue.

And what I found interesting in that was that they were calling the teachers’ federation as opposed to reaching out to the Joint Occupational Health and Safety Committee and their schools and reaching out to their employer.

There was no one at the school boards monitoring heat as an occupational health and safety issue so after that record heat we promptly began speaking with the school boards in PEI to talk about what are teachers expected to do in these situations? We realized that there's really very little, if anything at all.

And so the conversation continued along the lines of what needs to be done and how can we develop these policies so that our members, but also their students are safe working in the heat in PEI.

And in fairness to folks in education in PEI these hot weather incidents have been fairly rare. And when they do occur, they would typically be in July and August. Our collective agreement prevents school from taking place in July and August. So this wasn't an issue in the past. 2021 was our first incident, in recent memory of dealing with these kinds of temperatures in schools. Nevertheless, with climate change this is something that we can expect to be in our future.

And so it's important to learn to adapt to this and put in place policies and procedures and safeguards so that schools are safe for everyone.

At that time, we requested fans from the school boards, a very simple piece of equipment to help mitigate heat for the remainder of the school year

According to the school boards, this was not possible. They had no funds to provide teachers and students and other staff in the schools with fans.

We continued our conversations with the boards. Eventually we realized that this was not moving, and so I decided to involve the Workers' Compensation Board of PEI, the Occupational Health and Safety Division.

Unfortunately in PEI in that particular division, they have no ability to enforce specific temperature readings or maximums in the schools because none exist in the legislation.

So that really limited our ability to use that particular organization to enforce maximums in PEI.

In May of 2023, we pushed forward a small test case. We had one teacher ask for a fan from a school board, and the school board's response was, we don't have any—we can't provide this to you which I thought was shocking.

In the spring of 2024, our friends at the Home and School Federation passed a resolution on heat in schools. The resolution was somewhere along the lines of where the heat or where the humidex in schools reaches approximately 35, that schools will be closed.

So in May of 2024, we raised it at the bargaining table. No surprise, there was no interest from the Employer’s side in including any provisions on heat in the collective agreement.

What we had proposed in bargaining was the following. So until reliable measures are implemented in all schools to ensure the health and safety of teachers, other staff and students in high heat, where the temperature inside a school is 35 degrees Celsius with humidex or above, the school will be closed. Evidently our members are not looking for schools to be closed. That's not their desire, but they're entitled to a work environment that's safe and when the humidex reaches 35 and above, there are some safety concerns for the staff, but also for the students.

So given this very limited progress over that four- or five-year time span with the Teachers' Federation working at this in a very consistent and almost aggressive manner, trying to get the school boards to make some movement, we had made no progress at all, in my view. And so we felt we had no other option.

We tried to work collaboratively and encouraged the school boards to develop a policy that was not successful. We tried to involve the Workers' Compensation Board, they were limited in their ability to enforce any norms. The home and school intervention was very appreciated, but didn't lead to results. We felt that we had tried everything to collaborate with the boards and to get them to develop policies and to make schools safe for  staff and students with respect to the issue of heat in schools.

The only thing that was remaining was to inform the public and possibly the public could put some pressure on the politicians who hold the purse strings and could invest in making schools safe places on those hot weather days.

So that led us to our campaign "Keep Cool, Keep Learning". It was really our last-ditch effort to try to move this file forward on behalf of our members. This campaign was led by myself, our communications and PD director Chad Gallant, with the support of our communications committee.

So the big component of this campaign was making the public aware of the conditions in schools during those very hot days.

And how we did that was to provide all of our school reps, one or two hygrometers. In this part of the country, the humidity makes a very big difference in terms of how that how that's felt and so that's why we chose to purchase hygrometers. What we were looking for the reps to do with those hydrometers is to take photos of the readings during particularly hot days. And we put together collages of the different photos that we received, and we put those on social media. And parents and the public, they really were shocked.

Even before we launched the campaign, our president and our executive director met with the Minister and the Deputy Minister of Education and they let them know the work that we've been doing on this file.

That we had seen limited progress and that we would be launching this campaign, but all of a sudden when we talked about informing the public of the conditions in the schools folks on the other side of the table were interested. And so part of the discussion was, well, what are you looking for? And we had developed a list of short-term, medium, and long-term requests.

One of the requests from our list of short-term asks was fans for classrooms. The fans are not the solution but regardless, when you're below 36 degrees, it does provide a small amount of relief.

They met on a Thursday. By the Tuesday we received notice from the deputy minister that they had purchased fans and that they would be distributed to all the schools, for all of the teachers. We haven't received the commitment for the medium-term and the long-term requests that we put forward, but in four days,

We were able to achieve greater results than we had in the previous four years and that as a direct result of this particular campaign, and it hadn't even been launched yet at that point.

We do intend to revive it in the spring because there's still work to be done.

We still don't have a policy and obviously we need some investments in cooling systems in PEI for our schools. But I was relieved to finally see a bit of movement on this particular file.

So, we listed short-term actions that we were looking for within the next six months, medium-term actions by 2028 and long-term goals by 2035. So in terms of the short-term goals we are still looking for the boards to develop clear policies as to how to deal with this in schools. So what activities are going to be modified, how are they going to be modified?

We wanted the school boards to make that clear to parents not to expect lots of learning happening during those hot weather days in the schools where there's no climate control, that way that would take a bit of pressure off the teachers on those days. We were looking for developments from the school boards around policy and communication.

In terms of the medium-term by 2028, we are looking for funding and establishment of air-conditioned and cooling areas in all schools.

And then lastly, the long-term goal is really for government to invest in full climate control across all schools by 2035.

We all know that climate change is coming. We all know that we have to adapt, so we feel that this is a pretty reasonable request for our educators, but also for students.

As of February 27, 2026, we received some more information about commitments from the employer. They're going to be taking a few steps in the direction that we are asking for. So the first commitment that they've made is that they're going to be starting a pilot project. They're piloting portable air conditioning units in a few classrooms. They're currently gathering data. They did so as well in September. And they're going to review whether that was successful in those schools.

And then the second commitment that they've made and this is according to one of our medium-term asks, the employer's going to be establishing climate-controlled areas in two island schools. This will be two large-scale areas, such as a cafeteria or a school library where a large number of staff and students can be circulated through that area throughout hot days. And the employer will then review some of the information and the statistics gathered from those pilots and then they'll decide whether to continue.

But they are significant in the sense that for years we tried to bring this to the attention of the boards with little or no movement on ways to mitigate heat in schools. As a direct result of the Keep Cool Keep Learning campaign, we were able to get the government to commit to number one, the fans for all teachers on PEI and to start these two pilot projects.

I really do believe that this is specifically because that campaign shone a light on the issue of heat in schools. And importantly, it brought it to the attention of parents and the public. As soon as we involved the public and parents, it became an issue for government, and they realized that they needed to respond.

So this issue took a lot of time and a lot of persistence to move it forward. The road that we took shows that if you are tenacious if you do involve other organizations, other stakeholders, change is possible, pressure can lead to results.

And we will keep working on this issue and putting pressure on government as climate change is something that we're all going to be dealing with more and more going forward.

Julieanna Mawko: Thank you for tuning in to SOURCE.

In this episode, we explored climate change through multiple lenses: from the evidence-based findings of researchers to the front-line experiences of educators and the vital advocacy of teachers’ unions. Whether it’s through adapting to the effects of climate change in the classroom or advocating for better learning and working conditions, this episode underscores that we all have a role to play in addressing the effects of climate change.

Check out the show notes for links to resources mentioned throughout the episode.

SOURCE is produced by the CTF/FCE. This episode was hosted, produced and edited by me, Julieanna Mawko, and sound engineered by Rolf-Carlos Klausener.