The ALEC (Latin America for Climate Education) project aims to promote climate change education in Latin America through the adaptation of pedagogical resources to the local context, the professional development of teachers and the creation of a community of practice.

ALEC was initially implemented in Mexico and Colombia, but the project has since expanded its geographical reach by establishing partnerships in Central America (including Panama, Guatemala, Honduras, and Costa Rica), as well as in Peru and Argentina.

 The importance of climate change education

The OCE's goal is to promote quality education on climate change for primary and secondary school students around the world and induce the behavioral changes necessary for the ecological transition. Classroom-based educational projects should enable young people not only to understand the phenomena at stake, but also to think of solutions for adaptation and mitigation of climate change and lead to the concrete application, through actions in the classroom, of the school, town or community.

Latin America educating on climate change

In this context, the OCE, together with several collaborators, launched the ALEC (Latin America for Climate Education) project. This five-year pilot project aims to promote education on climate change in Latin America, more specifically in Mexico and Colombia (with the ambition to include other countries on the continent).

To achieve this, the project participants are working on three main aspects:

• Adaptation of pedagogical resources to the local context: create a set of quality, multilingual, interdisciplinary and free access educational resources for teachers and trainers, based on the IPCC reports.

• Professional development of teachers: train and support primary and secondary teachers, as well as trainers, in order to update their knowledge, discover new pedagogies (inquiry-based science education, project-based learning, interdisciplinarity, etc.) and new tools ( especially digital).

• Creation of a community of practice: organize conferences every year throughout the project in Latin America to bring together local professors, as well as international personalities and experts, in order to promote the exchange of knowledge and experiences between professors and scientists.