What is it about?

As the world faces climate change and environmental collapse, schools are rushing to update science classes to be more "green." However, this article argues that simply adding new topics isn't enough. The problem lies deeper: modern science education was built on an old idea that humans are separate from nature and should control it. This mindset is part of what caused the current crisis. While textbooks still teach this old view, real-world science is already changing. Scientists today are discovering that everything is connected - from the bacteria inside us to the way animals and plants communicate. They are learning that we cannot fully predict or control nature, and that we must work with it rather than just studying it from a distance. This article suggests that science education needs to "unlearn" the old habits of seeking total control and certainty. Instead of just training students to solve technical problems, schools should teach them how to participate in a complex, uncertain world. This means embracing doubt, listening to different kinds of knowledge (including from nature itself), and understanding that being a good scientist today means being a responsible partner in the web of life, not just a master of it.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

While many educators are calling for "greener" science curricula, this article takes a different approach. Instead of just adding climate change topics to existing lessons, we argue that the foundation of science education itself needs to change. Most schools still teach science as if humans are separate from nature and can fully control it—an outdated view that contributed to the environmental crisis we face today. What makes this work timely is that it bridges a critical gap: while cutting-edge science (like holobiont biology, quantum physics, and animal-technology collaboration) already embraces uncertainty, interconnectedness, and more-than-human intelligence, science education hasn't caught up. Textbooks and curricula are often decades behind current scientific practice. This article offers a concrete path forward by showing how emerging scientific practices can directly inform teaching. Rather than waiting for a complete paradigm shift in science, we demonstrate that the tools for change already exist. By reorienting science education toward participation, relational thinking, and ethical accountability, we can prepare learners not just to solve problems, but to navigate complexity and live responsibly within planetary limits. This shift could transform science education from a pipeline for technical workers into a space for cultivating thoughtful, engaged participants in our shared future.

Perspectives

As a science education/communication researcher deeply committed to sustainability, I have long felt a growing frustration. We have no shortage of frameworks, tools, and pedagogical tricks designed to "green" our classrooms. Yet, too often, these efforts feel like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. They focus on how we teach, while ignoring the fact that what we teach - and the very worldview underpinning it - is part of the problem. Writing this article with my friend and colleague Mairéad Hurley was, for me, a way of clearing the air. We cannot simply layer sustainability onto a science curriculum that still teaches students they are separate from nature and destined to control it. That modernist logic is exactly what got us here. My deepest hope is that this piece gives readers - whether teachers, researchers, or curious citizens - a sense of permission to stop trying to fix a broken system with bandaids, and instead find the energy to try something entirely new. There is a vibrant, relational, and humble science already happening in labs and fields around the world. I want this article to be a spark that helps you bring that living science into your practice, not as a burden, but as a source of hope and renewal.

Dr. Marianne Achiam
University of Copenhagen

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: Unlearning modernity: remaking science education in the Anthropocene, Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, July 2026, Springer Science + Business Media,
DOI: 10.1057/s41599-026-08221-9.
You can read the full text:

Read

Resources

Contributors

The following have contributed to this page