糖心传媒

Introduction

Being a teenager today opens you up to a social media feed filled with a chaotic blend of viral tree-planting challenges, AI-generated disasters, and sensationalist headlines about the climate crises. You know the planet is changing, you see the floods and feel the heatwaves in your own community. However, what you face online is a barrage of conflicting noises. 

“How do we know who to believe?” This question became the heartbeat of a recent study involving more than 7,000 secondary school students across 43 schools in India. We found that these students are thinking critically about climate change, recognising how its impact varies across social groups, but are also grappling with a secondary crisis: a lack of access to credible, evidence-based information about climate issues.

Between July 2024 and November 2025, these secondary school students in four Indian states logged on to complete an online climate change education module developed by Cambridge University Press & Assessment. Designed as a structured, sequential learning experience, the module aimed to build students鈥� understanding of global climate issues, their human causes, and their temporal consequences for ecosystems and communities. Because learners had to complete each section before moving to the next, the design reinforced incremental learning. Participation in the module was  voluntary  rather than completing it as part of a regimented science lesson. An independent mixed-methods evaluation, drawing on surveys and focus group discussions, revealed deeper insights into how young people process climate learning.

Local realities to global inequalities

Through the survey and focus group discussions that formed the study鈥檚 research methods, students demonstrated an increased understanding of human causes of climate change and its historical evolution. They articulated how rising emissions affect biodiversity, extreme weather patterns, and public health. Importantly, they connected global processes to local realities such as floods, heatwaves, droughts, and water scarcity. Rather than viewing climate change as an abstract scientific phenomenon, many described it as something woven into their everyday lived experiences.

A striking finding was students鈥� nuanced awareness of climate inequality. Many recognised that poor and marginalised populations are often the most vulnerable despite contributing least to global emissions. Consequentially, they highlighted the need for solutions tailored at different levels: local, state, national, and global. Students recognised that mitigation and adaptation require coordinated efforts, but also context-sensitive strategies. Moreover, students demonstrated a sense of agency and motivation to act even through micro initiatives such as reducing electricity use, limiting single-use plastics, planting trees, conserving water, and advocating within their communities.

Proliferation of misinformation 

However, students felt that their ability to act on climate uses was often constrained by a lack of access to credible information. While some students discussed accessing climate content through school subjects such as science or environmental management, and others actively followed reputable news sources, a majority cited social media – particularly YouTube and Instagram – as their primary source of climate information. Students mentioned well-known international and Indian public figures who advocate for environmental sustainability, noting how visible champions make climate issues relatable.

Students described the digital information ecosystem as both enabling and problematic. Viral initiatives such as mass tree-planting and ocean clean-up campaigns helped raise awareness about environmental issues. But they also pointed out that often the solution becomes more visible than the underlying problem: 鈥�when a solution is ordered to combat that problem or some plan is built to combat that problem, then that’s talked about鈥� without that solution, we wouldn’t have known about the problem in the first place鈥� 

More concerning for many students was the growing prevalence of misinformation, including 鈥榝ake news鈥�, sensationalised headlines, and AI-generated content that blurs the line between credible and false information. Thus, the question, 鈥�How do we know who to believe?鈥� emerged as a central theme in their reflections. Moreover, students linked misinformation and sensationalism to climate anxiety. In contrast, access to accurate, evidence-based information -鈥�more statistical and analytical data,鈥� that have had 鈥榓 lot of processing behind them鈥�-appeared to reduce confusion and restore direction. As one student articulated: 鈥�Accurate awareness gives us confidence, motivation, and 鈥� direction to take practical steps.鈥� This difference between crisis-driven narratives and evidence-based explanations proved subtle but significant.  When climate change is framed solely as impending disaster in crisis-driven vocabulary, it can breed despair. When it is explained through evidence, with space for agency and action, it can foster engagement. This raises an important question: how can students access reliable, evidence-based information about climate change?

Importantly, students did not place responsibility for navigating misinformation solely on themselves. Instead, they described a distributed responsibility: young people must seek reliable evidence, parents and teachers must guide and contextualise, and institutions should provide trustworthy resources. Teachers were seen as particularly important mediators. In a world of algorithm-driven feeds, educators remain anchors of credibility. Several students emphasised the need to 鈥榬ely on… our elders鈥� and informed mentors who can help interpret complex issues.

There was also a call for structural solutions. Many suggested that the government should establish a central, freely accessible repository of climate information, where students and the wider public could engage with verified data, research, and educational materials. Such a resource, they argued, would not only help combat misinformation but also democratise access to knowledge.

Conclusion: The way forward

A key finding from this project concerns how secondary school students access information to educate themselves about climate change and sustainability. As discerning learners, they are questioning sources of information and seeking evidence-based data from a variety of sources they consider reliable. As non-passive recipients of knowledge, they are processing climate learning through their own lived experiences (e.g. of individual responsibility) and contextual knowledge (e.g. of unequal climate impact). These findings corroborate research from other contexts and cohorts (Brandli et al., 2024; Walshe et al., 2024).

While international policy frameworks recognise the importance of contextualised learning (Singh & Shah, 2022), these findings provide for climate educators, policymakers, and parents: young people are asking to be equipped with the knowledge and tools needed to evaluate evidence, interrogate narratives, and act with informed conviction towards more sustainable and equitable futures. 

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the support of Cambridge University Press and Assessment (India) for facilitating learners鈥� participation in the survey and focus group discussions, and the Cambridge Humanities Research Grant for funding this research.

References

Brandli, L., Reginatto, G., Salvia, A., & C. Diniz, P. (2024). Student engagement on climate learning: What does the academic community say about it? International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 26, 406鈥�426. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSHE-06-2023-0219

Singh, S., & Shah, J. (2022). Case Studies on Adaptation and Climate Resilience in Schools and Educational Settings. Global Centre on Adaptation. https://gca.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Case-Studies-on-Adaptation-and-Climate-Resilience-in-Schools-and-Educational-Settings_web.pdf

Walshe, N., Perry, J., & Healy, G. (2024). Student perspectives on climate change and sustainability education in England: Experiences and expectations. UCL Open Environment. https://doi.org/10.14324/ucloepreprints.283.v1

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Nidhi Singal is a Professor of Disability and Inclusive Education at the Faculty of Education, and Vice President of Hughes Hall College, University of Cambridge. She also convenes the Cambridge Network for Disability and Education Research (CaNDER). 

Camilla H. Chaudhary is a post-doctoral researcher at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. She is co-founder of the South Asian Approaches to Researching Education (SAARE) Network, member of the Executive Team, 糖心传媒, and Associate Editor of the Cambridge Journal of Education.