Did yr 1980's secondary school teach you about climate change?

[hunnymonsta]

Mine did. We had Environmental Studies lessons in what would have been the equivalent of Year 9 in about 1985. We learnt about fossil fuels, renewable alternatives, and the "theory" (as it was then) of global warming. We also learned about CFC gases creating a hole in the ozone layer. Was my school very ahead of its time or was it fairly common for schools to teach about these things?

For years afterwards I saw nothing more about it than an occasional newspaper article, though the frequency of those eventually picked up momentum as the evidence-base grew and the science became more accepted.

I was a member of Greenpeace from the late 80s to 90s. It was in schools but there was a 'debate' flavour to it! You used to get abuse in the street collecting for them!

No. Not even a bit.

Yes, as part of geography and in chemistry too.I took GCSEs in 1988.

Yep. I vividly remember doing work about environmental issues such as acid rain and global warming and talking about renewable energy vs fossil fuels. It really isn't new!

We had a subject called Humanities which was kind of Geographyish. I remember learning about finite fuels and renewables as well as the ozone layer.

CFC were banned in 1987 and that was therefore part of the curriculum.

No. Not at all.

Yes, I did in the 80s. Lots about the ozone layer and alternatives to fuels. There was a focus on floods and im sure my teacher said about the south east would be underwater by it was either 2010 or 2020!

Yes. I remember thinking the immigrants washing up on UK shores bit was unlikely.😱

I was in primary school in the 80s and I recall watching an episode of Blue Peter explaining leaded and unleaded petrol and catalytic converters in cars so I think concern about the environment was a "thing" then. It's strange that I still remember it considering that I have little recollection of any other episode.
Was the collections of milk bottle tops they did for environmental reasons or did my brain misunderstand or misremember this ?

Not secondary but primary in the 80s and that’s where I first learned about the ozone layer, aerosols and that Australia had a hole in the layer above it. You don’t hear so much about the ozone layer nowadays?

www.bbc.com/future/article/20220321-what-happened-to-the-worlds-ozone-hole

🙂

Yes, in chemistry - 1954 Clean Air Act, CFCs, acid rain and building etosion becauseof the chemical reactions... first lessons for GCSE, so would have been autumn 1986 - took exams in 1988.

Pretty sure we'd done stuff on CFCs and the ozone layer and acid rain before then, too, but it might just have been the news.

Yes, but it was still called the Greenhouse Effect then became Global Warming, then Climate Change and it seems to be slowly becoming Climate Chaos or similar.

My parents were ahead of the times, though, and were reading books on the Gaia theory and Newscientist articles so we were very aware.

Was the collections of milk bottle tops they did for environmental reasons or did my brain misunderstand or misremember this ?

I think it was done for various things over the years. I'm sure Blue Peter collected them for children in Cambodia at some point.

I grew up on a dairy farm, so such collections were irrelevant to me - hardly ever had pasteurised milk,let alone out of a bottle.

They were still telling me the ice age was coming when I was at school .

Mind you, what they taught me in Modern Studies is Ancient History now.

Not much i learnt a bit about the hole in the ozone layer i left school in 1990 ,i didnt do geography as a gcse though.

I went in 89 but yes it was there.

The topics being worried about at my school in the 1980s were acid rain on Scandinavian pine forests and deforestation of the Amazon.
Considering how much Amazon has been felled since the 1980s I don't think our school debates on the subject made much difference.

Yes, we were told another ice age was on it's way.

I started secondary in ‘88 and we did lots on the ozone layer. Recycling was a huge thing I remember Blue Peter encouraging us to do, as well as learning about CFCs. The Body Shop and Greenpeace were organisations that I remember too.

Weirdly we learnt about things like acid rain and CFCs in German lessons as our teacher was a bit left-field and Germany were ahead of the game regarding doing things about it.

Remember my chemistry teacher telling us about the hole in the ozone layer and the danger of fridges. I recall feeling quite alarmed about it all.

Yes, I did in the early 80s. I did Geography O level in 1983 and we learned about acid rain and the hole in the Ozone layer. Also that East Anglia would be under water by 2020, and the world would have run out of oil.

Although we lived in Suffolk I wasn't worried about the flooding in 2020 because I was convinced we'd be wiped out by a nuclear bomb before 1990.

I was in primary school in the 80s and don’t recollect anything but in secondary school I remember touching on it during geography lessons and having to design a poster with group of other children during a drama session….all I can remember is everyone arguing about who wanted to draw an aerosol can 🙄