Key Elements of High-Quality Climate Change Education
The New Jersey Student Learning Standards that support climate change education aim to improve students’ climate literacy, building the foundational knowledge and skills they need to thrive as individuals, productive citizens, and caretakers of the planet now and into the future. The key elements identified below serve as a guide for developing instructional materials and professional learning tools aligned with research-based best practices to meet that aim.
Developmentally Appropriate
At each developmental stage, children become more prepared to examine the complexities of climate change. Our youngest learners need to build a foundational science understanding based on local phenomena that will support their growing understanding of global issues as they mature. Special care must be given to ensure that learning goals center on student agency, actionable solutions, and hope to address ecoanxiety.
Grounded in Climate Science
Learning opportunities involving climate change-related topics must be grounded in climate science to ensure an accurate understanding of the causes and impacts of climate change. The U.S. Global Change Research Program’s Climate Literacy Guide highlights essential principles for understanding and addressing climate change, and the National Academies of Sciences’ A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas provides clear guidance about key concepts and assessment boundaries for each grade level.
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Interdisciplinary
Climate change is an inherently complex topic. While grounded in scientific research, its causes stem from past and current human behaviors and impact various areas of society. Therefore, climate change is an interdisciplinary problem that cannot be confined to the science classroom. Approaching climate change from an interdisciplinary perspective allows students to see how it is interconnected with all areas of learning.
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Justice-Focused
The intentional emphasis on local issues and opportunities also brings environmental justice challenges into focus for our young people. Questions about how and why different parts of our communities experience climate threats and impacts in disparate ways help students further develop their systems-level understanding of climate change and prepare them to engage in civic life as decision-makers who aim to improve the quality of life for all community members.
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Oriented Towards a Thriving Future
Early climate change learning opportunities were often oriented to communicate the urgency of the problems that we face. Research has shown that this strategy fueled ecoanxiety and a sense of helplessness, rather than catalyzing action. Students – and the adults who support them – need to imagine a world in which they can thrive. From this hopeful stance, they can begin to examine the challenges that stand between them and their thriving world, and plan to act in ways that bring them closer to it.
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Place-Based
Through locally focused, place-based learning, students can explore their physical environment, historical and social context, and most importantly, the people and other living things in their community. Students build a systems-level understanding of their community as they develop communication and inquiry skills and ultimately gain a better understanding of themselves and their place in the world.
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Standards-Based
Developing learning opportunities with the standards as the foundation ensures that student learning activities move them toward mastery of their grade-specific performance expectations. This requires time and effort to ensure that grade-banded materials are adapted or re-tuned to meet students’ needs best.
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Student-Centered
Students experience the impacts of climate change in their daily lives and are aware of broader impacts around the nation and the world. Student-centered learning provides an opportunity for them to explore their unanswered questions, participate in authentic research, and engage in actions to respond through mitigation, adaptation, or novel solutions.
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