What are the links between colonialism and the environment? (A New Direction)
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The creators of this resource say the following:
This resource – created in collaboration with Climate Museum UK – focuses on the locations of Jamaica and Nigeria to explore questions about British colonialism and links to the climate crisis we face today.
The overarching question: ‘What are the links between colonialism and the environment?’ focuses on the exploration of companies and nations that have mechanisms to allow them to operate in other countries – military power, legal challenges, land-grabs and ‘social licence’. The impacts of colonialism have been devastating to biodiversity, and therefore to people who live with close dependence on thriving ecosystems. In turn, the damage to the planet is escalating and impacting on all humans and species.
In three learning sequences, pupils explore the many ways we can imagine alternative ways to live and communicate these ideas.
The creators of the resource highlight the links to geography teaching, in particular building pupils’ place knowledge and exemplifying the connections between physical and human geography.
A New Direction is a London-based charity working to support young people’s creativity through culture, education and employment and skills’ support. Climate Museum UK is a group of artists and educators who help people make sense of environmental issues and histories through creative conversations
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This resource was sourced by the research team, rather than recommended by an educator taking part in the research. As many educators acknowledged the challenges of teaching about colonialism in the context of climate change education, we hope it will help towards meeting this identified need:
“It's not something that maybe comes up so strongly on the curriculum, like I know in certain years I have done a little bit on colonialism, and how maybe that resulted in global trading structures that are still benefiting more developed countries, or formerly empire countries [...] we were going through [a global picture book]. And then one of the facts was like somebody from County Down discovered hot chocolate. And so I read it, and I was just like, ‘I don't believe this’. And so I just, like, did a little bit of research. And then I was explaining to the kids that well, actually, what this person did was, he was a wealthy landowner, and he went to Jamaica, and he saw them making hot chocolate and brought it back. So we talked about like, is it reasonable, or is it fair, or why, why would they say that he invented hot chocolate? And he didn't, and like, some of the kids, are like, some of the kids are very clued in on certain things, and one of them was talking about well, it's kind of like Rosalind Franklin, and like how she didn't get credited with her stuff about DNA, because she was a woman at the time. So looking at power in that kind of way.” Dublin-based senior primary educator
“There's ways in [to talking about climate justice], isn't there? And you know, if you're talking about the exploitation of parts of the world historically, that might be…you know, why have these countries ended up the way they have? There is a huge colonial history. It's all post colonialist.” Dublin-based post-primary educator
“Something we do a lot in Year 5 or year 6 and we talk about where chocolate comes from and is it fair trade? And so it's thinking about how will they deal with it in their countries if we buy a product at a lower price because it's cheap, [what's] the justice of how they're trying to survive? And how [can they] put their area of need correct if the larger companies are paying such a little amount? So, you could look at the banana trade[...]. So, for me there are lots of areas you can go in. It's how much depth you want to go into it. The thing that keeps going in my head is linking it back to the justice… it’s identifying that it links back to where we started from.” Newcastle-based middle-school educator