“The schools will remain closed for one week.” The news was quite expected as the existing pollution in the city was high. Yes, the carbon emissions have really impacted the levels of safe limits prescribed by all standards in several cities across the globe.

Barack Obama, Former President of United States:

“We are the first generation to feel the effect of climate change and the last generation who can do something about it.”

Kofi Annan, Former Secretary-General of the United Nations:

“The world is reaching the tipping point beyond which climate change may become irreversible. If this happens, we risk denying present and future generations the right to a healthy and sustainable planet – the whole of humanity stands to lose.”

1. Climate Changes Act as a Cognition Load

It has been observed that with every single degree rise in temperature, the cognitive load of the learner increases. The learner’s ability to recall, recognize, access and configure concepts and visuals takes a beating. A study indicates that the cognitive attention of chess players decreases with every degree increase in temperature.

2. Climate Changes Impact Our Senses

The response of the sensory systems due to impactful changes in the climate appears significant. It challenges the routine and existing patterns of communication from different senses which in turn results in delayed cognition, delayed response levels, and delayed networking in the brain cells.

3. Climate Changes Can Act on the Intellect

Studies indicate with evidence that climate can act on the intellect. Even minimal changes in temperature appear to decrease the ability of the learner to access their intelligence. It is not that the learner’s intelligence becomes low, but one’s ability to access it becomes tough.

4. Climate Changes Impact Memory

The ability of the brain to form effective networking becomes dismal due to climate change. Both formation of memory, accessing and processing of memory appears difficult during severe weather conditions. Some researchers attribute this to the struggle experienced by brain cells to metabolize glucose. With increasing temperatures, serotonin formation in the system declines.

5. Climate Changes Impact Learning Styles and Quality

Research indicates that climate change can corrupt perceptions, affecting understanding, logistic communication, mental designs, problem solving and critical thinking. In China, Park studies indicated that with 1% change in the standard deviation of the mean temperature, performance levels decreased by 2 percent. In Qatar, experiments showed that strapping cold packs to students’ foreheads restored some of the lost cognitive capacity due to heat.

6. Climate Changes Trigger Fatigue

The fatigue rate has been found to be impacted significantly with climate changes. Even with learners, the interest, aptitude, attention levels, cognitive engagements, and interpersonal relationships including peer learning seem to be impacted by changing temperature. Fatigue is also reported to lead to enhanced incoherence, disorder, impatience, aggression, and violence.

7. Climate Changes Impact Entrepreneurial Attitude

Consequent to its impact on cognition, memory, and attention, the entrepreneurial attitude of learners reduces significantly. This results in more time on understanding, delayed decision-making, poor critical thinking and hesitant risk-taking behavior, leading to self-doubt, distress behavior, and poor relationship management.

8. Climate Changes Can Impact Behavioral Patterns

Climate changes can lead to ‘Climate grief’ among learners, both anticipatory and experiential. Learners indicate pain, sorrow, minor health complaints, sense of loss and hopelessness. In the West, studies are being conducted on eco-anxiety and eco-melancholia among learners because of climate changes.

1. They need a deep understanding and sensitivity to climate changes to make their classrooms open, flexible and learning-friendly.

2. They should be willing to negotiate with their pedagogical patterns to enable personalized learning and peer learning to make learning less stressful.

3. They need to acquire emotional skills that will help them to handle various emotional challenges that arise due to the impact of the climate.

4. The assessment patterns in classrooms must be more pragmatic, non-judgmental, informal and positive.

5. The classrooms should be less monotonous, less demanding and enabling self-learning.

This article highlights the critical intersection of climate change and education, calling for adaptive teaching strategies in an evolving environmental landscape.