Climate Age

When looking at the subject of climate literacy, educators will frequently lump it in with such extracurricular activities as music, art, field trips, robotics competitions, science fairs and more.  These are valuable and life-changing pursuits, but climate change is quite different.  It touches many aspects of life and could seriously impact the well-being and prosperity of every student throughout their lives.  They will see it in extreme weather, food availability, energy supplies, air and water, careers and business operations, housing, land use planning, health care, transportation and nearly every other aspect of society. The effects of climate change will be inescapable. There is nothing elective about it and climate literacy needs to be ultra-curricular and not extra-curricular.   

Hard science shows that the effects of climate change will be with today’s students for decades. Even as we take critical steps to lower greenhouse gas emissions, climate scientists know it could be a century or longer before we might see some actual cooling. It is a true multi-generational challenge. Our young people need to be thoughtfully and thoroughly educated on its causes, consequences and solutions. This will lead to enlightened civic action, smarter career choices, more sustainable consumerism and more brilliant and effective longer-term solutions. It is only fair to the next generation that this education be comprehensive and at-scale. It is an inescapable truth that, to do this at-scale, will involve policy reforms and not just the dissemination of model programs and best practices. This translates to five basic pillars (or buckets) as follows:

Foundational learning: Students at the primary and secondary levels need a core understanding of what climate change is all about and how it will impact their future. They also need to know about solutions to the problem. The current state of such foundational climate education in the U.S. is not very good. Surveys show there is minimal to no real climate education occurring in American classrooms. In most schools it is one to two hours per year and a large percentage of schools do not teach the subject at all. Often when it is taught, it is delivered as though the science is not settled, causing students to be confused. We need stronger education policy and public funding tools. Federal state and local governments are spending $1.3 trillion each year on public education and climate literacy is getting a microscopic share. In the short run, education agencies need funding to prepare teachers so they can cover the subject with knowledge and competence. We also need to refocus some existing policy tools so that the U.S. Department of Education and other agencies, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Science Foundation, can do a better job on supporting climate education. States will also need to elevate climate content including how they deploy the Next Generation Science Standards. Foundational climate education is not an add-on. It should stand on its own as a critical subject that should be infused into other disciplines. Climate and environmental education can be highly supportive of many other disciplinary and skill development areas such as high-quality STEM, business and social studies education and even standardized test performance.  

Vocational Education: Students, mostly at the secondary and community college levels, are the core of America’s robust Career and Technical Education (CTE) thrust. Climate change heralds an economic and technology revolution in many fields, including alternative energy, building trades, manufacturing, agriculture and forestry, water management, and more. This will require a well-trained and competent workforce. We know that U.S. employers are anxious to fill a widening gap in well-paying technician jobs aimed at a greener economy.  The Wall Street Journal reports that, in 2022, employers posted 20% more green jobs but the green talent base only grew by 8.4%. Climate will surely and directly impact nearly all the 16 career clusters that comprise the conceptual backbone of CTE. The federal Perkins Act and state and local high school and community college funding aimed at climate solutions will create a pathway to good-paying jobs and, for many, a path out of poverty.  

Targeted innovation and inventiveness training: As the U.S. works to maintain its position in global innovation, we will need more directed education to stimulate creativity and teamwork. This is needed at all levels of education. We have seen it work in robotics and computer science and it can surely be applied to sustainability and climate innovation. There are numerous opportunities in public policy to support educational programming that is designed for more climate-focused creative thinking and inventiveness. We need inventors, systems innovators, team leaders and more.  The America Competes Act would be front and center on such an education effort along with numerous other programs at the federal, state and local level.

Future Leaders Education: Not all of our leaders come from higher education backgrounds, but many do. U.S. leaders comes from many sectors of society including government, business, law, science, engineering and communications. Our colleges and universities need more, better-funded incubators to build a corps of climate-enlightened leaders to handle future climate challenges. They also need to infuse climate concepts into design, engineering and business schools, public administration schools, medical and wellness education, natural resource and agriculture education, computer science and many other subject areas. The National Higher Education Act can be reformed to support incubation of climate leaders and the infusion of climate principles into many courses. One simple step would be to increase funding for the existing University Sustainability Program.

Sustainable Schools: In the field of education, applied learning is critical. It supports “stickier” instruction at every level. The need for applied learning skills has ready home in the use of facilities and grounds for education. In the next three to four decades, more than half of America’s schools will need to be replaced or overhauled. Many of these schools, particularly in front-line communities, are in terrible condition and the Congress could play a key role in helping to rebuild them. States and local education agencies are even more critical. This will include efforts to make them greener, more environmentally healthy, more energy efficient and to create more outdoor classrooms.  School buildings and grounds are ideal laboratories for foundational learning, innovation education, team development, technical training and more. Greener and more sustainable schools and schoolyards can become hubs for on-site education about new forms of energy, new campus climate resiliency plans, recycling efforts and other kinds of hand-on learning. Government support for more sustainable schools will also be a physical backdrop for climate literacy, technology, innovation and future leadership.  

It will be important for those who are concerned with America’s weak performance in achieving broad-based climate literacy to be aware of and act on these five main policy pillars for climate education.