Integrating climate change education into physical education: a scoping review

Unofficial AI-generated summary based on the public title and abstract. Not an official translation.

🔬研究者:Researchers in climate change education can identify gaps and future research directions for integrating CCE into PE.

🏢実務担当者:Educators and curriculum developers can gain insights into current practices and challenges of embedding climate education in PE.

🏛政策担当者:Policymakers in education can consider how to support interdisciplinary climate education across subjects, including PE.

Climate change (CC) is now a lived reality worldwide, though its impacts vary across different contexts. Preparing children and young people to respond effectively requires education systems to cultivate not only knowledge and skills but also the attitudes and responsible behaviours needed for sustainable climate action. Although its complexity calls for interdisciplinary approaches and integration across all subjects, how climate change education (CCE) can be embedded within specific curricula and teaching practices—such as physical education (PE)—remains largely unexplored. Yet PE offers a valuable context, as climate variability directly affects physical activity environments and health, creating opportunities to foster embodied climate awareness and sustainable lifestyle habits that strengthen individual and community agency in adapting to and mitigating climate change. Therefore, this study examines how previous research has addressed the integration of CC into PE. To achieve this, a scoping review was conducted across multiple academic databases (ERIC, Oria, Web of Science, Scopus, and PubMed), initially identifying 1,063 records. The inclusion criteria were defined in advance, and the records were screened step by step—first by titles, then abstracts, and finally full texts. Title screening reduced the number to 91 studies, and subsequent abstract screening resulted in 54 articles. After removing duplicates, 26 unique studies remained for full-text assessment. In the final stage, four articles were excluded due to lack of relevance, resulting in 22 articles included in the analysis. The search and selection process was guided by the PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) to ensure transparency in reporting, and all stages were carried out collaboratively by the authors. A descriptive synthesis approach was employed, organising studies by research questions and summarising their context, methods, and key concepts to identify patterns and gaps. This review shows that the explicit integration of CCE within PE remains limited. The findings reveal that research on integrating CCE in PE is fragmented and often addressed indirectly, with sustainability and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) frameworks dominating, rather than a clear focus on how CCE can be pedagogically integrated into PE and reflected in PE-specific curriculum design. While conceptual and reflective studies highlight both challenges and opportunities, empirical evidence and PE-specific interventions remain scarce. Additional gaps persist regarding climate-specific competencies, learners’ personal, social, and ecological identities, and teachers` perspectives, highlighting the need for more systematic and practice-oriented research to support meaningful integration of CCE in PE.

• openalex https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2026.1855386first seen 2026-08-11 04:34:13