'Moral imperative': Teachers say more climate change lessons needed in classrooms

TORONTO — As climate change becomes more evident in Canadians’ daily lives, teachers across the country say the education system must better equip younger generations to deal with its fallout.

Students will be returning to classrooms after one of Canada’s worst wildfire seasons on record destroyed homes, forced thousands of people to flee their communities and left many more across the country breathing in hazy wildfire smoke.

Lisa Jeffery, a high-school science teacher in Leamington, Ont., says there’s been a noticeable shift among her students’ attitudes toward climate change in the last decade.

“It’s not looking terribly optimistic when our country is on fire most summers as it is right now,” she said in a recent interview while one of several air quality warnings was in effect for s