"I think one of the biggest challenges we have in New Zealand and across the Western world is the ability to have civil disagreement and respect that people have other views," Seymour added.

"What this curriculum does and the supporting document does is basically says 'this is the way to think and if anybody disagrees is has built-in strategies for suppressing their views'.

"I just think that's a real shame and it's taking us backwards as a society."

The new climate change teaching resource was announced on Sunday by Education Minister Chris Hipkins and Climate Change Minister James Shaw.

Shaw, co-leader of the Green Party, said earlier this week that the Government had received high demand from teachers wanting resources to teach climate change as a subject in schools.

"We're getting a lot of demand from teachers so the fact that there were some resources that had been developed, once it was piloted and some changes were made, it seemed appropriate to be rolling out."

Seymour said while it's not a bad thing for students to learn facts about climate change so they can understand what they hear in the news, he said the curriculum doesn't allow room for any debate.

"Let's do it in a way that actually allows kids to respectfully disagree rather than one that is basically set up to clobber them into a way of thinking, because that doesn't help them at all."