I was very honoured to be asked to think about what the future of meteorological education would look like in 2050 in celebration of the 175th anniversary of the Royal Meteorological Society. From my perspective, nurturing and growing meteorological and climate education is one of the most important things that the Society does and has done throughout its history. In thinking about how to approach this important topic, I couldn’t resist thinking about what the journey through education of a young person entering formal education this year might be and how it might be different to my own experiences. Assuming they are beginning reception in 2025, by 2050 they will have completed their formal education and be a key part of the future meteorological workforce, and of course a member of the RMetS. Please forgive the indulgence of me writing the rest of this essay in their (imagined) voice.

A Childhood Spark for Nature

Ultimately, I think it was the worms that brought me here. My journey to becoming a meteorologist started early, but it didn’t start from a family connection to science or from a school with a teacher with a love of the weather. I was lucky to have been at a primary school which was one of the early members of the National Education Nature Park. One of my most vivid memories from that time is going out into our school playground to take part in a challenge designed to get us thinking about the nature all around us. As a typical five-year old, I was obsessed by all kinds of creepy crawlies, but it was the worms that grabbed my attention. At first, it was simply watching them move and where they could be found on different days, but I realise now that this was the beginning of a love for nature and an appreciation for the need to observe and monitor the natural world. Now, of course, the nature park is a critical national asset which has been replicated in a number of other countries around the world, building from the excellent work that those early schools and the early nature park team did in establishing it.

I don’t think I really understood how much work was going on to embed climate and sustainability across the curriculum and across the education system at that time. Inspired by their work on the nature park, my school also began to think about not just teaching about nature but teaching about climate too and about how they could be an exemplar of meaningful climate action for my community. In 2025 they produced their first Climate Action Plan, linking Adaptation, Biodiversity, Climate education and green careers and Decarbonisation (ABCD) together as a critical part of their school improvement plan. Having gone back to my school to talk to my former teachers about this time I know they benefitted from a huge range of free support to build this plan.

Firstly, they could access the Sustainability Support for Education hub which provided the tools and resources that they needed. When they needed to talk to someone who could provide advice and guidance they could work with a number of different volunteer Climate Ambassadors from our local university, the local council and from an environmental group. They also signed up to the Let’s Go Zero campaign and got support in building an effective plan from one of their Climate Action Advisors.

Schools Taking Action: Climate, Curriculum, and Community 

Both building this plan and delivering on it was no doubt difficult for both the headteacher at my school, struggling for resources to put the plan into action and for the teachers who, by and large, hadn’t any experience or training to teach us about climate or sustainability. Nonetheless, all of the school community noticed a big change when we were selected to be one of the first 200 schools to benefit from and investment from the newly formed Great British Energy that put new solar panels on our school roof. The solar panels were fitted during my second year at primary school, and we and our parents certainly noticed how different the school looked. This was, of course, just the first step in the transformation of our school, with new insulation, windows and a new heat pump added to the very beautiful but very old Victorian building. The school could not have invested in this change on its own, so the support from successive governments to help with this transformation was crucial. The energy and enthusiasm that came from all these changes was infectious within the school community. Our teachers started to talk more and more about the positive impacts the changes were having, the additional money that the school had to invest in other areas of our education and the potential jobs that they could see for all of us to work in these fast-growing industries.

Being part of the new school eco-committee at primary school certainly made me think more about if my interest in science and maths might lead me to a career in sustainability and climate. It wasn’t until I was at secondary school that this idea really took shape though. This was a period of huge change, the major reforms to the national curriculum that began to be implemented from the late 2020s were now being rolled out to all schools. For me, that meant that I got to think not just about how we knew climate was changing in science, but to read books inspired by weather and climate in English and to think about how to develop sustainable, reusable products in design and technology. I was also so happy to be able to choose a GCSE in Natural History as one of my options in year nine. I know that some of my teachers needed a lot of help to build their confidence to bring climate into their lessons, and so the comprehensive programme of professional development that the government provided was an important support. It was also obvious though that lots of my teachers had great enthusiasm and willingness to learn about the best ways to teach about climate, reflecting that this was something that the teaching profession had been asking for decades for.

Shaping a Future: Climate Education and a Defining Heatwave

It was the summer of 2035 that really pushed me in the direction of meteorology though. It wasn’t just schools that had noticed that Met Office heatwave alerts were becoming more frequent throughout the 2030s. Summer 2035 was truly exceptional though, and although our school had a plan to adapt to extreme heat there was little that could be done through the two weeks of relentless temperatures in the high 30s that disrupted both the exam period and our sports day. The need to cancel some of those exams across many schools because of the risk to staff and students, and the subsequent disruption to the exams process and the questions in parliament and discussion on TV, radio and social media made me realise how critical weather and climate science was and would continue to be for society.

I was lucky that this disruption didn’t affect my own exams, but it did get me thinking about the future. I didn’t really have a good idea about what I might study next to pursue a career in climate science. It was so helpful to be able to join the Royal Meteorological Society as a young member and to get advice from the other members about what to do next. Since I was the first member of my family to go to university, this helped me understand which subjects to study at A-Level and how to apply to a university that would allow me to study climate science. The RMetS community was instrumental in showing me that climate science was a possibility. I was advised that I needed both a strong grounding in Maths, Physics and Computer Science because of the important role that machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques played in weather and climate science. I was already familiar with many of the AI tools we used at school to help with our work and develop computational code for our maths and science practicals, so this was quite a natural group of subjects to study.

From Student to Scientist

My A-Levels, along with the extended project I did with the help of a Climate Ambassador at the Met Office, gave me a great choice of universities to study at. I think I was lucky that, by 2038, there were many more options to study weather and climate science than there were for my colleagues in the early 2030s. Many universities had been able to successfully navigate a really difficult time the late 2020s during which course choice had been severely cut because of the funding crisis in higher education. The new and more inclusive financial model beginning in 2034 had enabled universities to, again, be able to respond more quickly and authentically to student demand for a wide range of climate related courses. The breadth and diversity of these courses allowed lots of my friends, not just those with a scientific background, to include elements of climate and sustainability in their studies.

It was so exciting to be able to work with leading researchers throughout my studies. Because many universities had substantial climate research programmes there was no shortage of potential routes to further study, but I decided that I really wanted some professional experience before committing to a research degree. Working first at a major private climate consultancy and then at the Met Office gave me a range of experience and skills that I could then apply when I started my research degree in 2046.

As I write this blog, I’m just coming to the end of this study programme. At least according to my supervisors it’s radically different to the way that they completed their own research training. The need to produce the three key elements of a research paper, an open research dataset and piece of research software that all address the same
scientific problem has certainly pushed me out of my comfort zone. I’ve particularly enjoyed the elements that required me to present my work to a general audience, which I chose to do through the use of an immersive virtual world that was available on several of the major gaming platforms.

Looking back, I can’t quite believe how much education has changed during the 25 years since I first looked at those worms in my school playground. I’ve been so lucky to be able to follow my early interests in nature all the way through to a rewarding and challenging career. I know that my own children, my eldest will start school next year, will hugely benefit from the transformation of climate and nature education I’ve seen during my own lifetime.

Professor Andrew Charlton-Perez, Professor of Meteorology at University of Reading