The social movements of our
country’s past and present have arisen from people’s everyday, lived
experiences. Child labor and brutal working conditions spurred a movement for
workers’ rights; racial discrimination and horrific violence motivate the
ongoing fight for civil rights; degradation of precious natural resources—and
the effects on human and ecological health—have led to efforts to protect our
air, water, and biodiversity. Now comes climate change. Earth’s climate affects
many aspects of our lives—how we grow food, obtain water, use energy, build
houses—and right now our climate is changing, but it can be hard to put a
finger on just how it is changing in our everyday lives. We’re getting
more extreme storms, but haven’t we always had storms, some worse than others?
Average temperatures are rising, but it’s hard to know what an average winter
feels like when winters vary from year to year.
And it’s hard to remember how temperatures and rainfalls that seem
typical today differ from what seemed typical ten years ago.
Because climate change can be hard
to grasp at the scales of our everyday lives, it can be hard to motivate people
to take action to stop it. But the changes in our climate are real, and climate
science has established that human activities that increase heat-trapping gases
in the atmosphere, mostly from the burning of fossil fuels, are behind it.
Because our lives are so tied to climate, it is imperative that we change the
ways we produce and use energy in order to prevent disastrous changes to our
planet’s climate. Understanding this is foundational, which is why climate
change education is essential to fighting climate change. Dealing with
climate change ultimately depends on an informed public, for only when people
understand that the climate is changing, and why, and how it matters to their
own community, can they be engaged and mobilized for action.
There is good news about climate
change education. Young people worldwide, many of whom learned about climate
change in school, are taking to the streets demanding climate action. In the
U.S., a 2016 national study(1) found that around 75% of public school science
teachers teach about climate change, and two-thirds of science teachers want
professional development in climate science. A 2019 poll of U.S. parents(2) found
that over 80% think that schools should teach about climate change. A large
body of work by educators and researchers over the last twenty years has led to
understanding of strategies for effective teaching about climate change.(3)
But challenges remain. The same
survey that found that climate change is widely taught in the U.S. also found
that around one-third of teachers do not think human activities are the main
cause of recent global warming.(1) Despite the highly interdisciplinary nature of
climate change across the sciences, social sciences, and humanities, 65% of
teachers who don’t teach about climate change say it’s because it’s not related
to the subjects they teach.(2) The same poll reveals other
concerns and needs of teachers. Ninety-one percent of teachers who teach
climate change say they feel comfortable answering students’ questions about
climate change, whereas only 56% of teachers who don’t teach climate change
feel comfortable with this. Perhaps related, 77% of teachers who teach climate
change say they have the resources they need to answer students’ questions
about climate change, whereas of the teachers who don’t teach climate change,
only 32% say they have the resources they need.
Climate change teaching resources
abound—a teacher can easily find lesson plans, datasets, maps and
visualizations, stories, and images online. But sorting through the vast
array of resources and assessing their utility, relevance, and credibility is
not easy. At the Paleontological Research Institution, we strive to help
teachers discover the essential elements of teaching climate change, both
climate science basics and social science issues associated with teaching such
a complex, interdisciplinary topic. We do this through our recent publication, The
Teacher-Friendly Guide to Climate Change, as well as teacher professional
development workshops and exhibits and programs at our two education venues in
Ithaca, NY—the Museum of the Earth and the Cayuga Nature Center.
Many Americans don’t question that
education is essential for building a strong economy and maintaining a vital
democracy. We understand the continuing value of our children learning the
things that schools teach today—some of which have been taught in the U.S. for
more than 200 years —such as reading, writing, mathematics, history, foreign
languages, geography, and science. Climate change education, which can connect
to all these disciplines, is just as valuable. Given the need to act now for a
stable, livable climate, climate change education is not only valuable, it is
essential.
(1) Eric Plutzer, A. Lee Hannah,
Joshua Rosenau, Mark S. McCaffrey, Minda Berbeco, Ann H. Reid. (2016) Mixed
Messages: How Climate is Taught in America’s Schools. Oakland, CA: National
Center for Science Education. http://ncse.com/files/MixedMessages.pdf
(2) NPR/Ipsos polls of 1,007 U.S.
adults conducted March 21-22, 2019 and 505 teachers conducted March 21-29,
2019. https://www.npr.org/2019/04/22/714262267/most-teachers-dont-teach-climate-change-4-in-5-parents-wish-they-did (accessed 11/18/2019).
(3) Monroe, M. C., Plate, R. R.,
Oxarart, A., Bowers, A., & Chaves, W. A. (2019). Identifying effective
climate change education strategies: a systematic review of the research. Environmental
Education Research, 25(6), 791–812.
https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2017.1360842
