Abstract
Young people's perspectives on climate change, sustainability and nature reveal a set of interconnected yet uneven experiences that have significant implications for climate change and sustainability education. Drawing on a large-scale survey of 2,429 students aged 11-14 in England, this article examines how students' nature connectedness shapes their attitudes towards learning about climate change and sustainability, and how their everyday encounters with nature-both within and outside school-inform these relationships. Students' responses to open-ended questions illuminate the sensory, affective and relational qualities of nature that matter most to them, including aesthetic appreciation, emotional regulation and embodied experiences such as sound, smell and touch. Yet these rich accounts contrast sharply with their descriptions of nature in school, where experiences are often limited to incidental encounters during breaktimes or narrowly framed curricular activities. These disparities further highlight persistent social and spatial inequities in access to meaningful nature experiences, as well as missed opportunities within school environments to cultivate deeper forms of nature connection. The findings suggest that young people's affective and sensory relationships with nature represent an underused lever for strengthening climate change and sustainability education. By foregrounding young people's lived experiences, the article argues for a more integrated approach to learning in, about and for nature-one that recognises varied forms of nature engagement, attends to inequities in access, and positions enrichment as a holistic component of curriculum and personal development. The discussion considers how these insights can inform emerging policy agendas and support schools in designing climate and sustainability education that is both experientially grounded and responsive to young people's diverse ways of knowing and relating to the natural world.