The Office for Climate Education (OCE), Sorbonne University has published the second edition of its teacher's handbook The Climate in Our Hands — Ocean and Cryosphere (2026), for primary and secondary educators working with students aged 9 to 15. Dr Mahdi Mansour, Science and Education Officer at OCE, coordinated this second edition and is one of its co-authors.
Based on IPCC reports, tested in class and validated by the OCE Scientific and Pedagogical Committee, the handbook helps teachers bring the science of climate change, and in particular the ocean and the cryosphere, into the classroom through interactive and multidisciplinary activities.
It is organised in two parts. In We Understand, students explore the foundations of climate science (weather and climate, the greenhouse effect, the links between ocean, cryosphere and climate) through inquiry, hands-on experiments, role-play and multimedia resources. In We Act, they move from understanding to action, designing adaptation projects such as coastal resilience, mitigation projects such as reducing their school's carbon footprint, and awareness campaigns for their communities.
The second edition was developed in partnership with the French space agency CNES, within the framework of the SWOT mission (Surface Water and Ocean Topography, led jointly by NASA and CNES), and includes a new inquiry-based lesson, «Reading the Ocean from Space», built on real SWOT data. The handbook is available in English, French, Spanish, German and Indonesian.
Download the handbook from the Office for Climate Education (OCE), Sorbonne University.
