What Makes His Innovative Work Unique?
Koen transforms climate education into a driver of skills, agency, and global empathy, preparing young people to act on complex challenges while strengthening education systems’ relevance and resilience, fully aligned with Unlock Education’s ambition.
The Challenge
- Climate change education remains uneven, low-priority, and often absent from school curricula worldwide. Many educators lack the tools, confidence, and pedagogical support needed to teach climate change in ways that are engaging and action-oriented. Existing approaches focus on facts and fear, creating disengagement and climate anxiety.
- As a result, young people struggle to connect local experiences with global challenges, to understand their own role within complex systems, and to develop a sense of agency and responsibility. Without education that builds understanding, hope, and capacity to act, schools miss a critical opportunity to prepare students to respond constructively to one of the defining challenges of our time.
The Innovative Strategy
- Take Action Global (TAG) is a nonprofit organization that works to make climate change education accessible and engaging for students and teachers worldwide, fostering global citizenship and empowering young people to turn knowledge into action.
- It offers a free, action-oriented climate curriculum co-developed with WWF, available in 14 languages, connecting classrooms worldwide through a six-week collaborative journey that combines science, empathy, and student-led action.
- It builds teacher leadership pipelines (facilitators, ambassadors) to institutionalize climate education locally and nationally.
The Impact
- Overall, TAG with all of the projects reached 9 million students/teachers in 189 countries.
- Climate Action Project reached 7.3 million students in 183 countries.
- Climate curriculum adopted or endorsed by 14 governments.
- Thousands of student-led climate actions implemented across countries.
- Growing teacher-led advocacy contributing to curriculum reform and policy change.
Why is Koen Timmers a strong match for the Unlock Education Partnership?
Strong alignment with priority age groups (7–18)
Supports both students and educators across primary and secondary education.
Build active citizenship and student agency
Helps young people connect learning to real-world challenges, strengthening civic responsibility, collective action, and social cohesion.
Strengthens educators’ capacity
Empowers teachers with practical tools, effective pedagogy, and confidence to teach climate change. addressing one of the main bottlenecks in climate education.
Connects local action to global challenges
Enables students to understand climate change through their own context, strengthening systems thinking.
Designed for scale and ecosystem impact
Koen’s model spreads through educator networks and partnerships, supporting systemic change in line with Unlock Education’s ambition to transform education systems.