Climate Action 91 – Teach Climate Change in the Classroom

Education and Climate Information

The Frog will explore The Climate Action Handbook: A Visual Guide to 100 Climate Solutions by Heidi Roop in the first 100 days of 2024

Kids should be learning the fundamentals of the biggest existential threat they face in school. But they aren’t. A 2019 poll conducted showed that 2/3 of adults, when asked felt that “schools should teach about climate change and its impacts on our environment, economy and society”. The responses align with our generally held expectations of political demographics. But it is generally held that a majority of teachers and parents want schoolkids to be taught about climate change and its impacts.

Despite the support for teaching climate change in the classroom, when asked, 55% of teachers said they were not covering the subject. Despite the controversial and often contentious state of our school curricula, when the teachers were asked, they were unclear on who was actually responsible for teaching climate change, with 65% saying “not me”.

Teachers are, on average, busy, often under-resourced, overworked, and underpaid. They are also under the authority of school districts which are becoming increasingly polarized on “controversial” subjects like climate change and the targets for parents who are increasingly vocal when their kids are taught a subject they disagree with.

In the poll, almost a third of the teachers admit being worried about parent complaints.

Groups are forming to combat this and equip parents, kids, teachers and school boards to ensure and amplify climate change literacy. For instance, Schools for Climate Action is “a non-partisan, grassroots, youth-adult campaign with a mission to empower schools to speak up for climate action”. 

Their passion and focus is empowering school boards, and other groups to pass “resolutions declaring climate change a generational justice and equity issue, call on Congress to act, and celebrate and expand school district responses to the climate crisis”. Successful mainly in California, they supply templates and guidance for you to approach your local school districts for effective action.

So check in on your local school district. Maybe you have kids there and know what they are learning. Have discussions with your kids (only 45% of us do) and empower others to explore climate change with theirs.

And help teachers and school boards by: ensuring that schools are funded, and that teaching climate change is required. Given the broad nature of the subject, there should be professional development opportunities for teachers from multiple disciplines to adopt, adapt, and develop a curriculum emphasizing climate change.

And start with the US Government publication Climate Literacy: The Essential Principles of Climate Science “that provides a framework and essential principles for formal and informal education about climate change”. NOAA offers resources including a toolkit for teaching climate change. You can encourage teachers you know to leverage these free, authoritative sources to adapt for their classrooms.

Next Up: Climate Action Day 92: Talk Climate Change With Your Kids

Howard Creel

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Email: rescuethatfrog@gmail.com