Teaching Climate Change

Current State of Climate Change Education in the USA & Indiana

READ - Climate Change Education is Failing Our Youth

READ - Making the Grade?  How State Public School Science Standards Address Climate Change

READ - Op/Ed: Indiana's new science standards improve lessons on climate change for students 

• PERUSE - Indiana new science standards as of summer 2022

• PERUSE - Purdue resources for educators

• READ - IU Educating for Environmental Change (EfEC) Summer Science Institute

• PERUSE - Next Generation Climate:  ALL references regarding "Climate Change"

PERUSE - Resources for Teaching Climate Change - NY Times

READ - Most Teachers Don't Teach Climate Change; 4 In 5 Parents Wish They Did

Some excerpts from the readings...

• Climate science must be mandated nationally as a standardized and testable curriculum for schools to implement, with clear guidelines and resources for instructors to teach it adequately. Teachers also need continued education on climate change through workshops and conferences, as well as up-to-date resources and easily accessible studies on the subject. 

• Since September 2020, teachers [in Italy] for every grade are mandated to teach a minimum of 33 hours on climate change and environmental sustainability 

• The reviewers considered the treatment of climate change in each set of standards with respect to four key points that form a basic outline of the scientific consensus on the issue:

  • • • • • • It’s real: Recent climate change is a genuine phenomenon.

            • It’s us: Human activity is responsible for the global change in climate.

            • It’s bad: Climate change is affecting and will continue to affect nature and society.

            • There’s hope: It is possible to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

• A number of common problems with the state science standards’ treatment of climate change are evident in the reviewers’ evaluations. 

  • • • • • • Promoting False Debate

            • Failing to Address Climate Change Directly 

            • Muddling the Science 

            • Missing Opportunities to Inspire Hope 

• Scientists and others who hope to inform the public or spur action have long struggled with how to convey the high stakes of global warming without making people feel helpless or fueling deniers by coming across as alarmist. 

• ...there are six Americas, on a scale from “dismissive” to “alarmed” about global warming. Those groups interpret the same information differently based on the community they identify with. For instance, those who think climate change is a hoax will probably continue to think so. People in the middle, who don’t know much about the issue, might become more concerned by a vivid account of how bad things could get. And those who are most concerned about climate change may accept a gloomy message as vindication of their views — but there’s always the chance they might lose hope about fixing the problem, Leiserowitz says.

• What’s more, most people don’t form their opinions based on the news they read, he says. “They get the memo from their communities.” His work has shown that people’s cultural identity, not their knowledge of science, drives their opinion on climate change.  “What we need isn’t more evidence, but people seeing other people who they identify with acting on the basis of the evidence,”

Images from NPR survey:  https://www.npr.org/2019/04/22/714262267/most-teachers-dont-teach-climate-change-4-in-5-parents-wish-they-did