In 2021 senior students from ICHK had a research paper published in academia.

A group of eight Year 13 students spent the summer of that year working on the paper, as part of a global education initiative around the climate emergency.

The team worked with Head of Science Michelle Rines, PHD researcher Smriti Safaya and teachers and university students in Hong Kong on the project.

It followed a call from School Science Review for papers looking at how science education can help people anticipate and respond to the impacts of climate change, and the role science education plays in meeting targets around climate change.

The project was timed to coincide with the November COP26 (the UN Climate Change Conference) in Glasgow.

After discussing the brief, the students investigated the ways that education systems are preparing young people to tackle climate change.

Among the issues they researched were opportunities for education for climate action in curricular and extra curricular school science; the responsibilities of teachers in relation to climate action and the models that exist for collective action through school science.

During the project, the students explored philosophical questions relating to the climate crisis and science education, conducted a survey across different schools, analysed the data and then wrote a detailed research paper.

Entitled "Listening to youth: how to close the knowledge-action gap in climate change education", the paper can be read here.

It is a shining example of student achievement which was a valuable addition to the students’ Mastery Transcript portfolios, and university applications.