Can you learn about climate action through poetry?

Michael Rosen says poets going into schools can help teach children about climate change

Usually you'd learn about climate change in lessons like science and geography at school but what about learning about it through poetry instead?

Writer Michael Rosen, who wrote 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt', has teamed up with other poets to do just this.

He thinks that by going into schools, poets can help teach children about climate change without making pupils feel guilty or anxious.

A new initiative - Hot Poets Ignite - sees more than 20 poets and climate scientists working together to create poetry themed around climate education.

Each poet has written a poem and they cover topics including cycling, wind energy and whale poo.

Part of the reason behind the campaign is to help children feel less worried and responsible about climate change and to focus on some of the positive efforts to tackle it not just the problems.

Michael Rosen said: "There's an element of optimism, hope, and trying to avoid the sense sense of doom or guilt which sometimes hangs about in the air, not deliberately, in some of this talk about climate change."

He also thinks it is a subject which should be taught more widely, not just in science and geography.

The Government has announced that it will make citizenship compulsory in primary schools in England which will include climate education.