- Free, purpose-built online hub designed to empower teachers around subjects of plant and environmental science
- Practical response to 2025 review which found minimal climate education provision in the national curriculum
- Showcases real-world Kew research projects, including the newly opened Carbon Garden
- Funded by the People’s Postcode Lottery
- Openly accessible from today via endeavour.kew.org/grow-your-teaching
From today, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is proud to support improved climate education in schools with the launch of a new bespoke online hub, Grow Your Teaching. This free-to-access resource is targeted at UK teachers and explores how plants and fungi can be used to introduce climate education across a range of different subjects. It aims to inspire young people, tackle the green skills gap and build a talent pipeline to address future environmental challenges.
Grow Your Teaching has been created in response to the review of the 2025 curriculum which found the current national curriculum offers minimal climate education to pupils in schools1. Recent research from the British Science Association also found that secondary school pupils feel a heightened sense of climate anxiety because of the way climate change is taught2, with undue emphasis on its devastating impacts rather than on presenting practical, hopeful and accessible real-world solutions. UCL’s Centre of Climate Change and Sustainability Education has also found that there are significant gaps in professional development opportunities for teachers regarding climate education3– a gap which Grow Your Teaching has been designed to address.
Bringing real-world Kew science and horticulture projects into classrooms, teachers will be able to learn about world-leading research into the climate solutions which are already being implemented, including through the 2024 Landscape Succession Plan, focusing on cultivating suitable tree species for a warming climate, and the Crop Wild Relatives project, which assesses food security and adaptations in agriculture. Teachers will also be able to explore Kew’s newly opened Carbon Garden, which brings to life the vital role carbon plays in supporting life of Earth, as well as the untapped potential of the natural world regarding solutions to some of the most pressing impacts of climate change, including flooding and biodiversity loss.
A new film has been created to showcase Grow Your Teaching, exploring how plants and fungi make sense of climate change. As a leading global centre for plant and fungal science, RBG Kew plays a vital role in developing real-world skills for green jobs across horticulture, conservation and climate-related careers. Through initiatives like Grow Your Teaching, free learning resources and school trips to our unique outdoor classroom, Kew connects pupils and young people to future professional pathways, inspiring and helping to train the next generation. With only 4 in 10 UK employers currently confident that schools and colleges are preparing young people for jobs in the green and net-zero sectors4, resources like Grow Your Teaching offer an invaluable resource to bridge this critical skills gap, helping to embed environmental and net-zero education into the curriculum and futureproof career pathways into a rapidly growing sector.
Every school is now required by the DfE to nominate a sustainability lead and have a climate action plan in place by 2025. Grow Your Teaching supports schools in meeting the expectations set out in climate action plans: strengthening biodiversity education, increasing access to and connection with nature, embedding climate change across the curriculum, and building staff confidence through continuing professional development.
Grow Your Teaching is part of Endeavour, Kew’s free interactive library of teaching resources. In 2025, RBG Kew launched Grow Your Future, a digital hub to promote green careers. To date, the platform has had over 7000 views and over 1500 users.
Julia Willison, Director of Learning & Participation at RBG Kew says: “Grow Your Teaching represents an exciting step forward in how we support educators. By bringing Kew’s world-leading plant and fungal science into an accessible digital space, we’re making it easier than ever for teachers to inspire curiosity, deepen understanding, and connect students with the natural world.”
In autumn 2026, Kew will further cement its commitment to training the next generation with the opening of the pioneering Shafran Learning Centre, our first whole life net-zero education building. Constructed to Passivhaus standards, this innovative new facility will support Kew’s ambitious sustainability goals whilst providing a dynamic environment for learning across generations.
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, is dedicated to harnessing the power of plants and fungi to end the extinction crisis and secure a future for all life on Earth. With Kew’s world-leading research, global partnerships, and beloved Gardens – home to the world’s most diverse collections of plants and fungi –Kew is using its trusted voice to shape policy and practice worldwide. As a charity, Kew relies on the critical support of its visitors, not only to sustain the gardens, but to protect global plant and fungal biodiversity for the benefit of all life on earth.
