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Nature boosts human health, yet environmental damage now harms human well-being.

Planetary Health links human and environmental health and calls for global education reform.

Teaching it requires systems thinking, tackling misinformation, and managing student anxiety.

Education must drive behavior change and prepare learners for complex, inequitable tradeoffs.

by Hunter Gehlbach, Ph.D.

Below the surface of our Earth Day celebrations lies a strange paradox. On the one hand, the Earth makes us healthier. A growing body of research shows how spending time in nature improves human health, resilience, and well-being. On the other hand, we have degraded the natural world to the point that the planet’s health is suffering, so now the planet is making us less healthy.

Planetary Health is a burgeoning multidisciplinary research field and a social movement. It aims to understand and solve this paradox by changing our consumption habits to improve the health of Earth’s systems for the sake of our collective health. Many disciplines contribute to this goal, but the role of education is pivotal. How can educators facilitate a global population’s understanding of the complex connections between the planet’s health and human health so that learners can craft solutions before it is too late?

Such a daunting, urgent challenge will require infusing core Planetary Health concepts into a myriad of educational opportunities. An initial step entails embracing the fact that we are all teachers and learners in this context. Traditional teachers can connect their content areas to Planetary Health. Instructors in informal learning settings can embrace experiential learning activities that vividly........

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