The Met Office has just issued its first ever Red-Warning for the extreme heat early this week, reaching record highs of 40C degrees, causing some schools throughout the UK to shut down during Monday and Tuesday to protect students and staff. With the heat posing a real threat to people’s safety and disrupting how many live their lives, many parents and students alike are keen to learn more about fighting global warming and ways in which to promote sustainability. In fact, research from MyTutor – the UK’s most trusted tutoring platform, has found that over a quarter of parents throughout the UK agree that their child has because inspired to pursue a career in STEM to aid greater sustainability. In light of this, MyTutor has added new environmental and sustainability summer courses to their summer groups list at a discounted price, costing £12-18 for a 2-hour session and £90 for a 5-day course, allowing students to find new passions, start thinking about the future of the world they’ll live in, and to supplement their learning.

Teachers and pupils say the issue of climate change is not covered enough in the classroom – the subject being treated more like a box to tick. Many students have been resorting instead to social media to source information. A poll by Public First found that 50% of parents with school age children found that climate change was the most important topic to their kids, with 72% wanting their children to learn about it at school rather than online where they run the risk of being misinformed. With 42% of parents reporting their school age children had spoken to them about protecting the environment, there is clearly an appetite to learn more about the climate change crisis among the generations that will have to live in the world affected by the generations prior.

Tailored to student’s interests, MyTutor will be hosting 75 new online courses throughout the summer, where kids aged 13-18 can take part in creative and educational programmes they care about, such as climate change and sustainability, from wherever they have WI-FI. From courses in environmentalism to creative arts and cultural issues, tech subjects, science, and reading clubs, rounded off with expert help in planning careers and university, MyTutor’s courses have been designed to make learning fun, exciting, and interactive. Kids learn in groups of up to eight, so they can enjoy being social while discovering something new. A select list of courses along with booking information is available here. Here’s a taste of what’s to come:

Learn about things they care about
As teens today have shown they are tuned into the issues facing the world, they can often spend a lot of time worrying about what the future may look like for them. MyTutor is offering courses which can harness that energy and put it towards a passion for learning how to solve the problems they care about. In “Science to Save the Planet”, teens will learn about environmental science and sustainability. If they are an advocate for racial justice and want to understand it better, MyTutor’s reading club dissecting “Natives” by Akala will help them understand how they can be a force for good.

Pick up professional and creative skills with tech courses
MyTutor offers courses that turn summer hobbies into useful future career skills. If your child is into sustainability and has a fondness of apps, they can learn about coding to create a new sustainability app. If your child loves music, they can now learn how to record, mix, and produce it. If you can’t tear them away from video games, MyTutor has summer groups focussed on video game design that could turn that addiction into a potential lucrative career. A few of these courses include coding language Python and programming the game Roblox, and many more courses that sharpen students’ tech skills and prepare them for a future facing career.

Build curriculum knowledge with real world Maths and Science
If your child loves Maths and Science but still finds them to be an uphill battle, MyTutor’s academic courses can be a great option. They’re designed to make learning fun and exciting, while boosting their knowledge of the curriculum and grades. They can try learning Trigonometry with Architecture, Geometry with sport, or understand ratios with baking. With real life examples of these subjects, they can get excited about topics that might’ve seemed boring or irrelevant in the classroom.

Bertie Hubbard, co-founder of MyTutor, discusses the role that EdTech can play in helping struggling students:

“Many parents ask us how they can best support their children to make the most of their summer break, so we wanted to create a wide variety of courses that would interest and inspire students during the holidays. From tech courses that turn hobbies like gaming into potential careers, to expert help with uni prep and impactful sessions on science and the environment, our courses are designed to help students develop useful skills for the future, build knowledge in areas they are passionate about, and learn new subjects outside of the curriculum.

“MyTutor’s summer courses are led by highly-skilled tutors who, as current university students, are experts in their subject areas and act as relatable role models to our students. By running these engaging, interactive and sociable group sessions, we hope that teens can develop their knowledge in an area that they care about, whilst also meeting other like-minded learners for a truly memorable summer experience.”