- In Pará, Brazil, a pilot of assessment of environmental competencies was implemented with more than 7,900 students in 90 schools, marking the first initiative of its kind in Latin America and the Caribbean.
- The results of the pilot in the Amazon will serve as a basis for future editions of the PISA test and will complement regional efforts to promote environmentally responsible communities.
COP30 was a global opportunity to discuss how education can promote sustainability within school environments. Held for the very first time in the Amazon region, a meeting placed resilience and sustainable development at the center of the discussions.
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), as part of its work agenda in the social sector, works to ensure that education systems of Latin America and the Caribbean can adapt and remain resilient even under adverse environmental conditions. Education plays a fundamental role in addressing the impacts of disasters in the region.
Promoting the debate on sustainability education is not only necessary, but urgent. Assessing students' knowledge, attitudes and practices regarding the environment makes it possible to determine whether we are fostering a culture of environmental stewardship with transformative capacity. In this context, the pilot assessment program in the State of Pará, that was presented during the event, acquired special relevance, as it considered aspects such as:
- Diagnosing the situation of sustainable environmental education at the local level to guide improvements in educational policies (curricular reforms, teacher training, resource development, etc.).
- Strengthening educational networks to promote sustainable environmental education locally, with a focus on the ability to apply knowledge in real contexts.
- Conducting comparative analysis and producing national and reporting of results in education for sustainable development, which serve as a basis for regional dialogue, technical cooperation, and the preparation of projects to improve education in this field.
Strengthening sustainability education during the COP30 represented a strategic opportunity to articulate the experiences of governments, international agencies and civil society organizations around a common goal. It placed at the center of the discussion the need to develop competencies that enable students to understand how human actions influence the climate, and how the climate, in turn, affects people’s lives and ecosystems.
Along the same lines, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), through its Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), implemented with the Pará State Education Department (SEDUC-PA) a pilot climate and environmental literacy assessment in the state, involving 90 public schools. This experience is the first of its kind in the Amazon region, and the results of this pilot study will serve as the foundation for future PISA measurements at the international level, strengthening the incorporation of green citizenship into educational agendas.
According to the OECD, the assessment of environmental competencies seeks to identify the level of development in knowledge, skills, values and behaviors of the students to measure how they are adapted to the climate challenges.
Figure 1: Self-reported knowledge of environmental and climate issues
The pilot study was developed during the month of August 2025 and reached more than 7,900 fifteen-year-old students in ninth grade of primary and the first year of secondary across the State of Pará. The assessment included an attitude questionnaire, a knowledge assessment and a set of conceptual questions on climate literacy.
The results, presented during the COP30, show that 15-year-old students in Pará have a relatively strong understanding of local environmental issues, such as the Amazon rainforest, but their overall knowledge of climate remains limited.
Students in Pará report having good, or at least general, knowledge, about issues related to deforestation and climate (62%), human impact on the Amazon (49%) and the relationship between the environment and well-being (44%). However, in other topics such as reserves, conservation and policies, their knowledge is still incipient.
During COP30, the State Secretariat of Education of Pará, together with specialists from the IDB, UNESCO, the OECD and the Office for Climate Education, presented its Education Policy for the Environment, Sustainability and Climate, established at the end of 2023, with a mandatory curricular component for students in basic education. This policy already serves approximately 1.5 million students in Pará, and initiatives are planned for its improvement and expansion, as part of the scope of a loan operation signed between the IDB and Pará.
This meeting also highlighted the importance of having assessments to support the implementation of curricula that foster environmental responsibility, following the agenda that the IDB has promoted in recent years. Measuring student’s environmental responsibility through local indicators—which include not only knowledge, but also attitudes, values, collective practices, and social commitment—is a dimension that deserves greater attention in the region.
Assessing this type of knowledge was one of the underlying topics of the discussion and the one that will take on greater importance in the coming years. Although international measurements such as PISA contribute elements to the discussion, it is expected that, in the future, this topic will be more present in the classroom, forming part of national curricula and assessment agendas.
Read more about the results of the PISA pilot in Pará here.