I don’t know about you, but since work from home started in earnest, meetings seem full of check-in questions. Don’t get me wrong, I like them. One of my favorites that comes up regularly is, who was your favorite teacher? Answers always feature people whose love and passion for their area of expertise shine through in their teaching.
Working with Marie Fargo, our Instructional Resources Coordinator, to plan a new K-2 climate change resource, I was reminded of this phenomenon. As we brainstormed ideas that connect climate change to K-2 standards, I found myself filled with memories of warm summer days in my Grandma’s flower garden, watching the hens and chicks spreading out into the pebble-covered path and the sounds of my grandfather and uncles lamenting the weather and attempting to plan that year’s corn crop. These fond memories made me focus on topics like crop production and farming, pollination, and climate change. Unsurprisingly, I prefer to focus on these topics; they make me feel warm and nostalgic, are central to my being, and are impacted by climate change.
Teachers’ best work happens when their personal interests and professional expertise align and they have the resources and support to put theory into practice.
- You need support on how to teach climate change:
Educators tend to shine when they teach about things they love and when they have support. It’s no wonder that many teachers only spend 1-2 hours a year on climate change — a subject that has and continues to be dominated by narratives of loss, sadness, guilt and culpability. Further limiting teacher’s interest in teaching climate change are the flurry of politically charged narratives and perceived lack of support for teaching the topic in anything that isn’t science.
I applaud and marvel at the teachers who have been teaching climate change for decades. We see you. However, most teachers find themselves among the majority of Americans who believe in climate change and think it should be taught in school but just aren’t sure how or where to start. This gap isn’t a result of the teachers not doing the work. It’s more systemic than that. The systems teachers use to learn about key subjects and ways to incorporate those topics into their practice are lagging behind.
- You need access to quality teaching materials that center local climate change challenges and solutions:
To teach climate change effectively, teachers need access to quality, local teaching materials, time to adapt and implement them, and ongoing support to continue the work.
Several polls have shown that educators don’t teach about climate change because they feel uninformed about it or that the science is out of their depth. Furthermore, if educators feel under-supported by their administrators in their effort to teach climate change, they are far less likely to do so.
There are many states and school districts addressing teachers’ concerns and filling needs with innovative and scalable models of climate change education. The Wisconsin Climate Education Hub was created to provide educators with quick, easy access to high-quality instructional resources to support the state’s requirement for environmental education. They are now working with Wisconsin educators to create new instructional materials centering Wisconsin-based issues and solutions. An example closer to Climate Generation’s home is in Saint Paul Public Schools (SPPS). The facilities team leads the SPPS Sustainability Program, which provides teaching materials to educators, guidance on how to jump in to support their district’s climate action plan, and supports students to lead action projects at their schools.
- You need ongoing training:
Not knowing where to get support or what materials to use to incorporate climate curriculum into your plan can be exhausting. On top of that, it can be tiring to not be connected to a community of other educators and mentors going through the same challenges you are.
Each year, Climate Generation hosts our Summer Institute for Climate Change Education – registration for our 19th year has just opened! At the Summer Institute, educators connect to a vast network of climate change professionals. They are inspired to learn new connections to the subjects they teach and to fill their virtual tote bags with instructional materials and curriculum. Professional development events, like a Summer Institute, reinvigorate educators, but they don’t solve some of the major challenges they face trying to transform their teaching practice.
Teachers need that reinvigorating spark from an event, and they also need sustained support for the long-lasting passion. It’s well known that people remain excited for about 2 weeks after a professional development event. Rather than one-off events for support, teachers require a mixed bag of options that extend throughout the year. Educators who engage in 50 or more hours of professional development from workshops, online communities, personal research, instructional coaching, and peer-to-peer working groups are far more likely to change their practice and find the support they need to sustain the change.
This is why Climate Generation offers the Teach Climate Network and regional education support. The Teach Climate Network provides year-round professional development opportunities for K-12 and nonformal educators through: monthly webinars, regular working groups, and a monthly e-newsletter with tips and tricks on teaching climate change. Our regional education work supports educators through facilitated curriculum coaching, communities of practice, and paid working groups. This year, in collaboration with our Talk Climate Program, we also offered a unique Inspiring Stories project to help educators find their personal connection to climate change.
To ignite change in how we teach about climate change, we need to help educators find their passion for climate change education. We must replace the overly simplistic narratives we’ve become accustomed to with stories of love, compassion, enthusiasm, and strength.
Teaching about climate change and moving people to take action on climate change doesn’t require a deep understanding of the greenhouse effect. To those of us teaching climate change day in and day out, we’ve learned that climate change resilience and adaptability, or the ability to bounce back from climate change impacts, is what communities need to understand and respond to the climate crises they are facing now.
There are many ways to teach about climate change that uplift the people power behind climate change solutions and center a just transition to a brighter, safer, and more equitable future. We suggest teaching activities that engage people on a personal level, weave in some hands-on exploration of climate change facts, and support action-based projects in their local communities. I encourage you to join our Teach Climate Network to get access to the many opportunities we offer to build your climate education practice.
Teaching about climate change and its connections back to farming makes me feelcloser to my family. You can read my climate story on Climate Generation’s Blog. I’m keeping my family traditions alive by continuing to learn how to best steward and tend the earth in an unpredictable future. Teaching others how to do so helps me build my community and welcome others into my world.
Lindsey Kirkland supports on-going climate change education programs for K-12 educators and public audiences. As the Education Manager, she also develops a vision for and provides strategic coordination for programs focusing primarily on professional development for teachers and informal educators. Lindsey is adjunct faculty at Hamline University and supported the development of their Climate Literacy Certificate, a contributing author of NSTA’s Connect Science Learning journal, and an active member of Climate Literacy and the Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN) and the North American Association of Environmental Education (NAAEE) Guidelines for Excellence writing team. Lindsey has served as an environmental educator with the AmeriCorps program the NJ Watershed Ambassadors, worked as a naturalist and education program coordinator for the NJ Audubon Society, and assisted in program development for museums, universities, and new nonprofit organizations in the United States and Australia. Lindsey holds a BS in Environment, Conservation and Fisheries Sciences from the University of Washington in Seattle, WA and a MEd in Science Education from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. In her spare time, Lindsey enjoys spending time with her husband and her son.
