Veronika Andrea, Stilianos Tampakis, Ioanna Vasileiadou, Desalegn Yayeh Ayal, Ulisses M. Azeiteiro, Henri-Count Evans, Inga Grinfelde, José Baltazar Salgueirinho Osório de Andrade Guerra, Jasenka Gajdoš Kljusurić, João Carlos Correia Leitão, Chunlan Li, Newton R. Matandirotya, Bethwel Mutai, Gustavo J. Nagy, Thierry Razanakoto, Jame Schaefer, Goran Trbic, Roberto Ariel Abeldaño Zuñiga, Sane Pashane Zuka, Charles Galdies, Adriana Consorte-McCrea, Francisco Platas, Mittul Vahanvati, Pedi Obani, Safwatun Nida, Lucas Gabriel Zanon, Mayara Régia Sousa de Melo, Alison Glover, Roman Vakulchuk
Raising pupils’ awareness regarding forest and environmental issues has become particularly significant in recent years. The need to promote new educational approaches, teaching methods, and special tools to successfully implement cross-thematic curricula and prepare climate-aware citizens has been accentuated by scientists and environmental activists from all over the world. This study aims to evaluate whether the English language textbooks in Greek primary schools support English language teachers in their effort to raise pupils’ awareness regarding forest and climate change issues. To this purpose, a questionnaire was created and addressed to 172 English language teachers employed in the Administrative Region of East Macedonia and Thrace, Greece, during the school year 2021–2022. In addition, content analysis was performed in the English language textbooks of all grades of primary school. The results revealed that English language textbooks frame climate change, forest, and environmental issues as being limited to a certain number of problems. English language teachers have very little time available to devote to forest and climate change education. What is more, they have either very little or no training at all to present these issues to their classes and expand on them successfully. Finally, English language teachers mostly use social media, news websites, television, and the radio to be informed about forest and climate change issues. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2026.
The Centre for Environmental and Marine Studies (CESAM) and Department of Biology, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal; Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Eswatini, Manzini, Kwaluseni Campus, Matsapha, South Africa; Institute of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Engineering, Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies, Jelgava, Latvia; Center for Sustainable Development (Greens), Universidade do Sul de Santa Catarina (Unisul), Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil; School of Urban and Regional Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China; Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience Centre, Beitbridge, Zimbabwe; Kgotso Development Trust, Beitbridge, Zimbabwe; Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de la República Uruguay, Montevideo, Uruguay; CERED, University of Antananarivo, Antananarivo, Madagascar; Marquette University, Milwaukee, United States; University of Sierra Sur, Oaxaca, Mexico; University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland; Department of Land Economy, University of Malawi, The Polytechnic, Blantyre 3, Malawi; Institute of Earth Systems, University of Malta, Msida, Malta; Academy for Sustainable Futures, Canterbury Christ Church University, Kent, Canterbury, United Kingdom; Casa de Cultura de la UAEMéx en Tlalpan, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México, Ciudad de México, Mexico; School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia; University of Bradford, Bradford, United Kingdom; Science Education Department of Universitas Negeri Malang, Malang, Indonesia; University of São Paulo, São Carlos, Brazil; State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Campinas, Brazil; The Open University, Cardiff, United Kingdom; Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, Oslo, Norway; Department of Forestry and Management of the Environment and Natural Resources, Democritus University of Thrace, Komotini, Greece; Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece; Directorate of Primary Education in the Regional Unit of Evros, Evros, Greece; Center for Food Security Studies, College of Development Studies, Addis Ababa Univesity, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
