It’s September and with the cooler weather comes the start of school. Already several weeks since school started, we have adjusted to the buses on the streets and groups of children walking to and from school. But what happens when they are in school? What are they learning?
Even if you have kids in school, you may not have a very good idea about what they are learning. It’s less likely you know what are they learning about climate change.
Climate change is a hot topic for today’s students. They have been hearing about climate change and its impacts from very young ages. They are leaders in the movement demanding a national and global response to climate change. They know their futures depend on what is done today to address climate change. What are the schools doing to educate them about this very real and very serious issue to prepare them to live and work in this changing world?
In 2021, at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), the ministers of education and environment in attendance committed to including climate change education in all educational institutions. That same year, a United Nations study of almost 50 countries revealed that less than half made any mention of climate change in their educational policies. A February 2023 article posted by the Columbia Climate School at Columbia University reported that only 21 percent of the new or updated plans submitted by 95 countries mentioned climate change education in their Paris Agreement goals; none of them presented it as a climate strategy.
In the United States, what is taught about climate change varies by state. Even if it is taught, it may be taught with “both” sides – covering the human-caused climate change and the naturally occurring climate change as comparable and of equal consequence. Some states view the topic as too politicized, ignoring scientific facts and allowing the curriculum to be manipulated by politicians’ agendas.
The problem with not teaching about climate change is that students need to learn about climate change to know what to do about climate change.
A 2020 study of the impact of a university level course on climate change found that a majority of the students who took the course made pro-environmental decisions (i.e., type of car to buy, food choices) because of the class. Those decisions equated to an individual carbon emissions reduction of 2.86 tons of CO2 per year. Additionally, the course participants reported a strong personal connection to climate change solutions that was manifested in their daily behaviors and through their professional careers.
It is not a leap to expect that primary and secondary climate change education could have a similar impact on younger students and likely extend to changes by their families.
An October 2020 Report from the National Center for Science Education and the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund gave New York an A- for its climate change education. While this may seem high and like New York is doing a good job teaching climate change, the standards were low. The reviewers evaluating each state’s climate change education indicated that New York’s standards were less explicit than they would have preferred in discussing the reality of climate change and human responsibility for it. This means that, while New York State standards address topics related to climate change, they don’t clearly connect those issues to climate change and human causes of climate change. That omission is key if we are expecting our children to acquire sufficient knowledge to change their own behaviors and to take on professions focused on addressing climate change and its human causes.
While school leadership from my local school district has told me that teaching elementary age students about the dangers of plastic across the grades and curriculum was too controversial, hopefully that is changing as students demand to learn about this and other environmental issues like climate change for their own sake and maybe ours.
Today’s students are well aware of what is happening around them. They are impacted mentally, physically and emotionally by the realities of climate change. We owe them a science-based education on climate change to prepare them for the world they will live and work in. This is not about belief or politics. It is about our responsibility to provide a quality education. While the purpose of education has changed over the centuries, it has always been about preparing youth for their lives as adults. At this time, that must include being prepared to address climate change.