August 21, 2023
Cool Australia
It was 18 years ago in Antarctica that the penny dropped for Cool Australia founder, Jason Kimberley. Witnessing firsthand the fragility of our environment and ecosystems, he returned home to Melbourne motivated to do something. Starting conversations with his children’s schoolteachers, he quickly uncovered a chronic lack of quality, accessible resources, and support for teachers in their efforts to educate students about the environment. Without time to upskill themselves in relevant, current climate science, let alone fashion that knowledge into appropriate lessons for students, teachers told Jason that important issues were being left out of the classroom. Research supports this, showing 76% of Australian teachers find their workloads unmanageable, and 45% work outside their area of expertise. 58% intend to leave the profession due to administrative burden. This situation was the catalyst for Cool Australia. Officially launched in 2008, today Cool develops and delivers free online, curriculum-aligned resources across social, environmental, and economic sustainability topics to a community of 200,000 educators and 3.2 million students. Across Early Learning, Primary and Secondary education, Cool’s mission is to enable teachers and parents to be the best educators they can be. It works both independently and in partnership with leading environmental and social…