Children As Key Agents for Sustainable Change: Education and Awareness on Environmental Harms within the School Setting

The idea of education as a vehicle for knowledge and sustainable change is powerful. In this paper, we seek to promote understandings on how children’s learning about environmental harms in the school setting is related to their well-being. Here, we centre on child well-being within a life world framework to illustrate children’s views and experiences of learning in the classroom and its implications beyond the classroom. In a qualitative study involving 42 children (aged 14-16) in one city in Punjab, India; we document the ways in which young minds are shaped and consequently how children themselves shape their own context and environment. Through a focus on children’s perspectives on environmental harms including climate change, deforestation, waste management, consumerism and urbanisation; we explore the impact of education and awareness on ideas of sustainability and environmental justice. Informed by children’s world view, we conclude by sketching the policy and practice implications to argue that as future parents, consumers, and policy makers; children can be key agents for sustainable and positive change.