Include Climate Change study in curriculum, activist urges FG

An environmental activist, Ramatu Tijjani has urged the Federal Government to introduce Climate Change Education into the nation’s school curriculum.

She said in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Kaduna that teaching the subject in Nigerian schools would help save the environment and ensure sustainable action to mitigate its causes.

Tijjani who runs `Foundation for Protecting Women and Children’ said it was important to build the capacity of the youth to deal effectively with all problems associated with climate change in the country.

“Nigerian primary, secondary and tertiary school curriculum need to incorporate climate change issues like the rest of the world, because education is an essential element of the global response to climate change.

“Educators need to help students learn more about climate change, in and outside classroom, and also introduce new methodologies in teaching science subject through local languages to enable the young ones understand better.”

She also advocated that climate study be adopted by African Union, so that the continent would be saved from all forms of threat and related diseases associated with climate change.

“This will help young children in Africa understand and address the impact of global warming and encourage changes in the perspective climate change is viewed and its impact on the environment.

“Our planet is warming day-by-day, and its temperatures are fast heading toward levels that scientists believe will threaten humans and the natural world in the future.

“Therefore, it is advisable and very vital to immensely educate the young ones in their schools about climate change and various diseases associated with global warming.

“Today, worldwide, there is an apparent increase in many infectious diseases, including some newly-circulating ones.

“This reflects the combined impacts of rapid demographic, environmental, social, technological and other changes in our ways of living.

“Climate change also affect infectious disease occurrence,” she said.

Tijjani stressed that the study would “create greater awareness and youth participation in the protection of their environment and enable children learn various methods in adapting to climate change-related trends in their local communities.

“Knowledge of climate change will surely create opportunities for young people to learn more about it and the various ways to adapt to any environmental and natural situations.

“Climate change has now forced the emergence of more Insect-Borne Diseases which are extremely harder to control.

“We are calling for increased attention and action in developing global monitoring networks to look at a wide variety of infectious diseases in a wide variety of wildlife since they are such sensitive indicators of the health of the systems in which they live.”