Girls’ Education is a Powerful Tool for Fighting Climate Change

Earth Day

April 22 marks Earth Day, which has played an important role in building greater environmental awareness. Its recognition grows more important with each passing year.

Earth Day is a time to spotlight the impacts of climate change and environmental damage and the vast opportunities the world has to mitigate each. A growing body of evidence suggests girls’ education is key in our global efforts to build greater environmental awareness and contain climate change.

Research from the Brookings Institute concludes “climate action that is gender-sensitive, gender-responsive, and gender-transformative can bring about the systems-level change needed, not only to eliminate gender inequality, but also to achieve a sustainable, just, equitable, and fair human society.” Educating girls around the globe raises their awareness of climate change, which allows them to become better environmental champions.

Equitable education around the globe grants better opportunities for girls and women to live better lives and to make meaningful, positive impacts on the environment. “Education also shores up resilience and equips girls and women to face the impacts of climate change,” according to Project Drawdown. “They can be more effective stewards of food, soil, trees, and water, even as nature’s cycles change. They have greater capacity to cope with shocks from natural disasters and extreme weather events.”

This research clearly demonstrates that educating girls helps pave the way toward a more environmentally responsible society. To that end, girls’ schools are outperforming coeducational schools in educating and empowering girls to be ethical, globally minded changemakers.

Research shows the powerful impacts made in girls’ schools. Girls’ school graduates, compared to coeducated peers, are more likely to:

  • become involved in environmental programs
  • deem it essential to participate in community social action programs
  • be frequently active in volunteer work
  • discuss politics with friends
  • plan to vote in elections
  • value keeping up with political affairs and influencing political structures
  • publicly communicate their opinion about a cause

Taking care of the planet will also require more equitable leadership and innovation opportunities for women—and girls’ schools are unique incubators for aspiring women leaders. Over 90 percent of girls’ school graduates say they were “offered greater leadership opportunities than peers at coed schools,” for example. Girls’ schools have no glass ceilings. They create environments without assumptions about what girls like or prefer, because no one is telling them certain skills or subjects are “just for boys” or that they’re too difficult to master.

Research by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) found that just 35% of STEM students in higher education globally are women. More women are needed in STEM fields, which will prove critical in protecting the environment. Girls’ school educators have made major progress in identifying and removing barriers that discourage girls from engaging in STEM-related pursuits. As Anne-Marie Trevelyan, the U.K.’s secretary of state for international development told PBS, “Giving girls 12 years of quality education is key to addressing a whole host of global challenges… Good secondary science education brings a better understanding of climate change and a greater urgency to tackle it. Today’s girls are tomorrow’s leading scientists, campaigners and politicians.”

It is also worth noting some of the most important environmental activists throughout history have been women. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson is often credited with launching the modern environmental movement. Today’s most recognizable climate activist is 17-year-old Greta Thunberg. Her work is a powerful example of young women’s capacity for leadership and civic engagement, the kind made possible through equitable education. Role models like Carson and Thunberg are vitally important in order for girls to “see it to be it.”

Earth Day is an opportunity to highlight not just the urgency of greater environmental awareness, but the impact girls’ schools are making by educating and empowering girls to lead us into a more just future.


Megan Murphy, Executive Director, National Coalition of Girls’ Schools


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