The tentacles of serendipity are what reeled Molly Weber into the topic of climate change: her twin sister’s eighth-grade fascination with jellyfish.
“She started learning about the ocean, because you can’t really talk about jellyfish without talking about the ocean, and you can’t talk about the ocean without talking about climate change,” said Weber, who is now going into her senior year at Fairview High School in Boulder. “So we both started simultaneously learning about climate change.”
The more she discovered, the more it stung.
“We both just got really, really worried as soon as we started learning what was going on with the climate crisis,” she said. “And like a layer of depth that you never learned about in school. I felt so anxious and sad about that — I had to do something.”
Topics related to climate, global warming and the environment are sprinkled into Colorado’s academic standards. For example, students first learn to observe their surrounding environment in preschool. Global warming is brought up in middle school.
But when it comes to climate change, the all-encompassing term that refers to the consequences of emitting heat-trapping greenhouse gasses on people and the planet, Weber said she hasn’t learned much about it in school, besides a few mentions in science classes.
Weber and her peers want more options.
“Overwhelmingly, our students are asking for more interdisciplinary learning around climate change specifically,” said Erin Greenwood, science coordinator at Boulder Valley School District (BVSD).
After the district became the first in the country to adopt the Green New Deal for Schools last winter, Greenwood said the pieces are in place to bring more climate education into the classroom.
“You have this interesting intersection of Boulder Valley schools having a longtime commitment to sustainability and then students really pushing the envelope with the [school] board and saying, ‘We want to see more in our classrooms. How can we make that happen?’” said Greenwood. “And so we’re at this really great, critical juncture … and now it’s just ripe to put it all together and really integrate it into our daily instruction and experiences that kids have in our classrooms.”
‘Lack of continuity’
Colorado has broad goals for what students should know and learn at each grade level, called academic standards, set by the state board of education. As long as they are met, local school boards and teachers can decide if they want to go above and beyond within their curriculum.
The concept of climate change specifically is only found in science standards, but climate is discussed more generally in social studies at various grade levels. Greenwood describes the standards as “light” on climate change.
“It’s surprising how late in the game you find the words climate change,” she said. “You don’t see that in the science standards until high school.”
When climate change isn’t included in academic standards, whether it’s taught or not depends on an educator’s ability and interest in connecting it to another subject they are teaching. And while parents and teachers overwhelmingly support teaching climate change in schools nationwide, one poll from NPR found that a majority of teachers don’t talk about the topic in class, saying they feel unprepared to do so or don’t know how it relates to the subjects they are teaching.
A 2022 nationwide survey from the North American Association for Environmental Education had similar findings — that schools and districts haven’t made teaching climate change a priority, and that educators often lack formal curriculum and resources.
“All of these lead to a recipe for low ratings for climate education in U.S. public schools,” the report wrote.
Tiffany Boyd, a retired teacher who started local nonprofit Classrooms for Climate Action, said there’s a lack of continuity between educators.
“Even though it’s embedded into the science,” she said, “it’s really been kind of piecemeal as to which teachers grab onto it and run with it.”
Think globally, act locally
There’s some disagreement on whether teaching climate change in schools should happen at all. NPR reported that states like Idaho, Texas and Pennsylvania have seen pushback on learning standards in recent years.
Other states have holistically integrated climate change into classrooms. In 2020, New Jersey became the first state to mandate teaching the topic in nearly all subjects in K-12 public schools. Two years later, Connecticut passed a similar law.
While no such rules exist in Colorado, a recent law authorized local school districts to give out seals for students demonstrating “mastery in climate literacy,” although with limited funding ($18,000).
BVSD’s adoption of the Green New Deal for Schools comes with plans to make buildings more sustainable, use more clean energy, incorporate student voices into climate action planning and more.
The district previously had sustainability related curriculum and climate goals, but the 2023 resolution is also a commitment to increasing climate change curriculum for every grade level.
To make that happen while working within the state’s requirements and without over-burdening educators, Greenwood found topics within academic standards where educators could connect various subjects back to climate change. Now, she’s working on providing lesson plans with local relevance.
“We’re actually thinking about how we can make this thing come alive in a math class using local data, and have it be a five or 10 minute experience,” she said. “And maybe students are experiencing that once or twice a year, but then by the time you get it once or twice in social studies, once or twice in science, once or twice in health, once or twice in music, you know, then kids are actually getting a little bit more exposure comprehensively.”
Along with professional development provided to teachers outlining how to use the new resources, Greenwood hopes it’s easier and more efficient for educators to make connections to climate change. By 2026, the district wants all students to have “meaningful and developmentally appropriate” opportunities to learn about climate change across disciplines.
But at the end of the day, it will still be optional for teachers to discuss climate change in the classroom when it’s not included in the state’s academic standards. The next review process for science standards begins spring 2025.
Boyd said one thing will remain constant when it comes to climate education: “Teachers are swamped.” She said the responsibility can’t only be on educators and schools — community partners are just as important.
“This is a community opportunity,” she said. “The less siloed we can be about well, ‘Teachers need to work on that over there, and we’ll work on this over here with city council [the better]’. Let’s get together and let’s connect kids as civic actors to the change that needs to happen to make our communities climate resilient.”
As a member of Sunrise Movement, a national climate advocacy organization, Weber is one of those people wanting to address climate change both in and around her community. After advocating for BVSD to adopt the Green New Deal for Schools, now Weber said she’s starting to work on a statewide resolution.
“I want to build and grow up in a safe world.”