Education Climate Adaptation Program
THE IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON EDUCATION
Ricardo v. Arcilla Jr.
Overview
Research-based adaptation learning support can accelerate social and policy change by
maximizing learning before and during adaptive decision-making. Climate change is increasing the
frequency and intensity of extreme weather events such as super typhoons, floods, droughts,
heatwaves and wildfires. These extreme weather events are in turn disrupting schooling;
precipitating learning losses, dropouts, and long-term impacts. Even if the most drastic climate
mitigation strategies were implemented, extreme weather events will continue to have
detrimental impacts on education outcomes. Climate change is causing massive school closures.
A 10-year-old in 2025 will experience twice as many blistering conditions and tropical cyclones,
three times more river floods, four times more crop failures, and five times more droughts over
his /her lifetime in a 3°C global warming pathway than a 10-year-old in 1970. Over the past 20
years, schools were closed in around 75 percent or more of the extreme weather events that
impacted 10 thousand people or more within the province of Catanduanes. These closures
were often prolonged due to infrastructure vulnerability and the use of school infrastructure for
emergency sheltering. Rigorous evidence from COVID-19 shows that, on average, a day of
school closures is a day of learning lost. At the same time, rising temperatures are also
inhibiting learning. A school day under extreme heat is a day in which some learning is lost.
While the size of the impact remains uncertain and highly context specific, temperatures that
are very high or deviate significantly from local trends do precipitate learning losses. Heat-
related learning losses may appear unremarkable when looking at changes in average
temperatures over time. However, detailed new analysis shows that even the small learning
impacts of slowly increasing temperatures could amount to significant cumulative losses over
time, especially for those in hotter regions. Students in every municipality, lost about 1-10
percent of learning per year due to increasing heat exposure. Together these effects will lead to
significant learning losses which will turn into significant income losses, lower productivity,
greater inequality, and possibly greater social unrest. In spite of these catastrophic
consequences, education remains overlooked in the climate policy agenda. This paper lays out
four concrete ways in which governments can protect education systems from climate change
so that their positive impacts on economic development, poverty alleviation, and social
cohesion can be sustained and boosted. These are: (i) education management for resilience; (ii)
school infrastructure for resilience; (iii) ensuring learning continuity in the face of climate
shocks; and (iv) leveraging students and teachers as change agents. The paper presents an
actionable agenda for each of these with operational examples in different contexts.
EDUCATION MANAGEMENT FOR CLIMATE RESILIENCE
First, support adaptation and disaster risk development at the sector and school levels.
Education policies, at the national and subnational levels, need to reflect the reality of climate
change and what it means to their sector. Critical aspects to cover include an assessment of
climate risks, approaches to minimize impacts to infrastructure and education outcomes, clear
coping mechanisms to manage learning continuity during climate shocks, plans to effectively
restore learning process after natural disasters, and a sensible approach to involve teachers,
students, and their families in the overall adaptation process. Nearly 60 percent of province in
a 2017 survey of for disasters include either disaster risk reduction or disaster response
components in their education sector plan, are not comprehensive. Schools must integrate
climate mitigation and adaptation measures into its education sector plan running through
2027, which identifies medium and long-term adaptation needs and implements strategies to
address them. Climate change learning strategies should be implemented by various
municipalities to strengthen linkages between the education and training institutions and the
climate change community. Such planning should be supported by clear data and analysis
related to climate risks and possible coping strategies. Effectively preparing for, coping with,
and recovering from climate shocks requires education officials to understand the climate risks
faced by their sector. Periodically assembling and discussing data about schools that are at risk
can help the system minimize negative impacts. Infrastructure assessments are equally
important to identify sub-optimal school structures that need upgrading for greater resilience
against climate shocks. The process of assembling these data may involve coordination and
consultation with non-education departments and experts.
SCHOOL INFRASTRUCTURE FOR CLIMATE RESILIENCE
For infrastructure the key actions are strengthening the resilience of existing buildings,
protecting classrooms from heat, and adopting innovative best practices (for both resilience
and cooling) for any new construction. Compliance with local building codes must be enforced
for all school buildings. Building codes are the minimum design and construction requirements
to ensure safe and resilient structures. Though they vary by country, these codes establish the
acceptable levels of risk from an engineering perspective. When school buildings operate
outside the scope of the building codes, they are at risk of severe damage and destruction
during climate shocks. This is unfortunately far too common. Note however that different
climate risks add different types of stress on school infrastructure, and thus require different
solutions. Even for each specific risk, there is no one-size-fits-all solution as different contexts
will have different resources available to respond and mitigate damage.
ENSURING LEARNING CONTINUITY IN THE FACE OF CLIMATE SHOCKS
Keep schools open (to the extent possible). There is overwhelming evidence that school
closures lead to tremendous learning losses, especially for the disadvantaged. And these losses
may be impossible to recover. Therefore, schools should only be closed when essential and
every effort should be made to reopen as soon as possible. Minimize the time schools are
exclusively used as emergency shelters. A key part of minimizing school closures is to minimize
their use as evacuation centers and/or emergency shelters. While these centers offer a lifeline
to the community, they do so at the expense of children’s learning and their future. At times of
crisis, it is normal for countries to resort to their public infrastructure to meet the needs of their
people, and this includes schools. However, given the high-cost school closures can have on
students and their learning, it is important to minimize the length of the school disruption
regardless of how the school buildings are being used. Establishing alternative options, keeping
dual functions by using classrooms as shelters only at night and reverting to classes during the
day, or using alternative temporary learning facilities on school sites can lower impacts on
schooling.
LEVERAGING STUDENTS AND TEACHERS AS CHANGE AGENTS
Students don’t have to be passive victims of climate shocks; they can play a key role in risk
management. Disaster risk reduction involving student training and leadership can be a low-
cost strategy to increasing climate resilience.
METHODOLOGY
Practical and participatory action research is used in this paper it triggers the researcher to
set in motion change based on the feeling that human conditions can only be improved if there
is change. Thus, the investigator provides the framework required for the realization of the
intended change.
Practical action research “is a paradigm of inquiry whose primary purpose is to improve the
capacity and subsequent practices of the researcher rather than produce theoretical
knowledge” (Bell et al., 2004, p. 1) In order to realize the anticipated change, the researcher
may work alone or he may work with his comrades but he remains the facilitator (Elliott, 1991).
During the research process, the investigator learns together with the clients. In addition, the
investigator must identify the problem, collect clients’ points of view, and analyze them in order
to identify gaps. The researcher is the head of the process and he or she steers the analysis of
results and identification of actions needed. The realization of the anticipated change requires
collective responsibility. Whereas the researcher takes charge of the processes of problem
identification, data collection and analysis, and the identification of actions needed, clients are
required to participate in the actualization of the identified courses action. In this research
model, several different processes are done collectively; for example, “the design of the process
and the action reflection cycle for both the researcher as an individual and with the clients”
(Bell et al., 2004, p. 1). In addition, as much as the researcher is in charge of the whole research
process, he or she engages the clients in the process of change actualization. On the other
hand, participatory action research endeavors to first change societal reality and encourage the
improvement of capacity and practice of researchers (Bell et al., 2004). This research process
ensures that individuals who are affected by the problem under investigation participate in the
planning, implementing the suggested plan, analyzing the research findings, and actualizing the
recommendations. This research process not only aims at solving the problem at hand, but also
cultivating the growth and development of respondents. Generally, participatory action
research is triggered by an organization; the organization uses researchers who are familiar
with the social design process and relate well with the participants. The guiding principle of this
research process is that we are the solution to our own problems (Cresewell, 2011). In other
words, people who are affected by a given problem stand a better position of providing proper
solutions to the problem at hand. This process also utilizes both local and experimental
knowledge when seeking solutions to the identified problems. Participants take part in the
processes of data collection and analysis. Bell et al. (2004, p. 1) argue that “the researcher
cannot have tight control or agenda in terms of research topic or design, but does need to be in
a situation whereby the problem is relevant and important to participants, and uses credible
methods. Participatory action research not only leads to the advancement of knowledge and
research, but also to the achievement of practical results (Cresewell, 2011). Three aspects come
into play when this method has been used to conduct research. They are participation, action,
and research.
Participatory action research and practical action have three main similarities. Both methods
not only call for active participation, but also have open ended objectives and high levels of
commitment from the lead investigator and respondents to the research problem and active
learning (Bell et al., 2004). First, these research processes allow for the active participation of
both participants and researchers in the design of the studies. It should be remembered that
participatory action research calls for the involvement of people affected by the problem at
hand in the planning, collection and analysis of data, and the implementation of the
recommendations (Sohng, 1995). In practical action research, the researcher takes charge of
the processes of problem identification, data collection and analysis, and the identification of
actions needed; clients are required to participate in the actualization of the identified courses
action. Secondly, in these processes “the end objectives are not directly specified in the
beginning, and results from these processes are essential in solving real problems in
organizations” (Bell et al., 2004, p. 1). Thirdly, these processes ensure that the researcher and
participants take part in solving the problem at hand and both the participants and the
researcher learn from the process.
Similarly, these two processes have notable differences. These differences are inherent in the
methods employed to solve research problems. In practical action research, the research
concentrates on the notion that when the process is improved, the organization is also likely to
improve. Bell et al. (2004, p. 1) argues that practical action research seeks to improve practice
rather than to produce knowledge. On the other hand, in participatory action research, both
the lead investigator and the participants must be from the same organization. The lead
investigator and the participants collaborate in the process of identifying solutions to the
problem and enhancing the research method. Bell et al. (2004) argues that the goal of this
process is to ensure that researchers and participants learn from the research process and
become technocrats of major social changes at the organizational level.
In summary, this paper has described the characteristics, similarities and differences of practical
action research and participatory action research. First, this paper has noted that practical
action research “is a paradigm of inquiry where the researcher’s primary purpose is to improve
the capacity and subsequent practices of the researcher rather than to produce theoretical
knowledge” (Bell et al., 2004, p. 1). In this process, the researcher is the head of the process
and he or she steers the analysis of results and identification of actions needed. The realization
of the anticipated change requires collective responsibility. Second, participatory action
research endeavors to first change societal reality and encourage the improvement of capacity
and practice of researchers (Bell et al., 2004). This research process not only aims at solving the
problem at hand, but also cultivating the growth and development of respondents. Generally,
participatory action research is triggered by an organization; the organization uses researchers
who are familiar with the social design process and relate well with the participants.
Participatory action research and practical action have three main similarities. Both methods
not only call for active participation, but also have open ended objectives and high levels of
commitment from the lead investigator and respondents to the research problem and active
learning (Bell et al., 2004). Similarly, these two processes have notable differences. These
differences are inherent in the methods employed to solve problems identified.
POSSIBLE TOPICS
Project-Based Learning as a Method for Interdisciplinary Adaptation to Climate Change—Reda
Valley Case Study ... Education, Research and Innovation
