Rethinking Digital Climate Education: Mapping Limitations and Possibilities for Transformative Learning

• In Event: Learning Environments, Well-Being, and Climate Resilience

Proposal

As climate crises intensify, the urgency of developing educational approaches that foster not only awareness but also collective action, resilience, and imagination has never been greater (Anderson, 2012; Weinberg et al., 2025). While climate science has generated extensive knowledge about planetary change and climate education has invested heavily in transmitting this knowledge, research shows that scientific facts and technical solutions alone do not automatically translate into behavioral change (Eisenstadt & MacAvoy, 2022; Huesemann, 2003; Lee et al., 2015). Climate beliefs and practices are more strongly shaped by social orientations, political cultures, and psychosocial contexts than by cognitive understanding alone (UNESCO, 2017; Monroe et al., 2019; Trott & Weinberg, 2020). These findings call for a rethinking of the dominant assumptions that have guided climate education to date.
This paper contributes to that rethinking withfindings from phase 1 of a multi-year mixed-methods study investigating how digital climate education resources are being used to support transformative climate and sustainability learning, and how they are falling short. We use the term digital platforms to refer to an organized, curated site or portal where resources are housed, and resources to describe the specific materials (e.g., lesson plans, videos, podcasts) housed within those platforms.
Specifically, the current study explores the following research questions about digital climate and sustainability platforms: 1) what are the characteristics of existing digital platforms, 2) how do resources represent (or omit) cognitive, socio-emotional, and behavioral learning outcomes, 3) whose knowledge and perspectives are centered or marginalized and how are issues of equity, accessibility, and justice addressed.
First, we carried out a systematic search and identified more than 1,500 platforms offering resources for climate and sustainability education. Our process began with iterative keyword searches (e.g., “climate education,” “sustainability learning,” “climate change education”), followed by a snowball approach as we examined already-included digital platforms. We included platforms explicitly designed for educational contexts and those adaptable for educational use (e.g., podcasts, videos, infographics), targeting learners from early childhood through higher education, teacher training, and lifelong learning.
To address the research questions, we coded platforms across categories including the type of content, target audience, topics, geographical specificity, cultural or spiritual context, alignment with SDGs or standards, desired outcomes (cognitive, socioemotional, behavioral), languages, equity and justice promotion, perspectives, accessibility, interactivity, user support, sustainability practices, adaptability, funding, and impact metrics. This structured coding allowed us to assess not only the number and type of resources but also explore deeper questions about who produces them, who they are designed to reach, which voices are emphasized or ignored, and what pedagogical assumptions they carry.
Our analysis highlights several key findings:
1. Cognitive outcomes dominate. Across platforms, cognitive learning is prioritized, with almost 80% of digital platforms focusing on these outcomes, compared to 70% mentioning behavioral outcomes and 54% socioemotional ones. Furthermore, while many platforms list behavioral outcomes as goals, few provide designs or supports likely to enable them. Socioemotional outcomes, despite their well documented importance for climate action (Monroe et al., 2019; Komatsu et al., 2019), remain especially underdeveloped.
2. Science overshadows other disciplines. 91% of the digital platforms included science as a subject area, while far fewer engaged civics (32%), economics (23%), or geography (22%). Subjects such as world languages (1.1%), religious or spiritual studies (3.3%), and history (5.7%) were rarely present. This pattern reinforces a model where climate education is confined to science and related subjects rather than treated holistically. It sidelines arts, humanities, and social sciences, which are critical for grappling with ethical questions, political frames, and cultural norms (Ghosh, 2016; Siegner & Stapert, 2020).
3. Equity and inclusion are weakly addressed. While some digital platforms center equity or justice (10% showed strong promotion and 22% moderate promotion), 45% made no mention of these issues and 22% included only minimal references. Asset oriented framing was rare, with only 9% of the platforms positioning marginalized groups as assets, compared to a 65% where this was not considered at all and a 9% where marginalized groups were considered only for their vulnerabilities. Evidence of diverse perspectives was strong in only 15% of the platforms. These results echo critiques that sustainability education often neglects inequities in climate vulnerability and environmental justice (Bullard, 1990; Casas et al., 2021).
4. There is limited engagement with alternative epistemologies. Few digital platforms engage learners through artistic, narrative, or relational approaches. Art appeared as a subject in only 11.5% of the cases. 70% of the 1,500 digital platforms showed none or minimal evidence of diverse perspectives, and only a 10.5% displayed any cultural or spiritual specificity, leaving an 89% without such grounding. Indigenous and non-Western epistemologies, which often link land, knowledge, and spirituality in more integrated ways, were rarely present.
5. Quantity is not the issue. Digital climate education resources are abundant, yet there is little guidance on how to use them effectively. Few platforms provide support for integration into teaching and learning, and many materials are outdated or misaligned with research emphasizing holistic, behavioral, and socioemotional learning. The challenge lies less in producing more content than in ensuring resources are updated and accompanied by training to support meaningful use in diverse contexts.
Taken together, these findings show that digital platforms, while powerful tools, continue to reproduce the broader limitations of climate education. In a world increasingly divided—by political polarization, unequal climate impacts, and competing visions of the future—our work underscores that climate education is also peace education. Re-examining how knowledge is produced, whose voices are included, and how learners are invited into action is essential for fostering the empathy, collaboration, and imagination needed to sustain peace. We hope our research will engage education policymakers and practitioners to reflect on questions such as: How can digital climate education be expanded without reproducing existing cultural and epistemic inequalities? How can these tools foster learning that is action-oriented, inclusive, and grounded in diverse ways of knowing? And how might educators, policymakers, and communities make better use of the resources already available to respond to the demands of the climate crisis?

Authors

• Andrea Weinberg, Arizona State University

• Victoria Desimoni, Arizona State University

• Iveta Silova, Arizona State University

• Michelle E Jordan