Applications of codes of teacher ethics in the context of anthropogenic climate change

Current school students, citizens of the future, will inherit urgent, complex, ethically challenging real world problems affecting social and environmental sustainability, such as anthropogenic climate change. Therefore, they must be prepared at school to understand the diverse issues underpinning anthropogenic climate change so they can make informed decisions at voting age. School teachers charged with this task, require professional ethical sensitivity contiguous to politically laden, complex topics such as climate change. This article documents the ethical dilemmas perceived by 98 final year prospective teachers in teaching about climate change, after the completion of a course on ethical professional practice. Results show three quarters of the prospective teachers in this study perceived ethical dilemmas in the context of teaching about anthropogenic climate change. They rationalised their views based on a range of professional ethical considerations.