“I want you to act as if the house is on fire, because it is.”
The pandemic has me at home, but has not stopped me from teaching. I have some paid teaching work coming in here and there, but 5 days a week, I am homeschooling my 5th and 7th graders. Of course, it made the most sense to teach environmental science, and we started right into a study of the atmosphere and took a sharp turn into the hydrosphere. The plan has been to teach my boys how the atmosphere works, including the greenhouse effect, and to introduce them to the complicated concept of climate change. Then as we learn more about the hydrosphere (Earth’s water), the geosphere (the land on Earth) and biosphere (life on Earth) we connect it all back to the impact climate change is having on each system. We’ve been graphing climate data, simulating the greenhouse effect; we are outside one day, inside the next. We were provided an opportunity to watch “Brave Blue World” (a documentary on global water concerns) made available to us through Earth Echo International. We popped some popcorn, sat down, started the movie and within the first 5 minutes, the anxious pit in my belly started to churn. They were going to say it. There was Matt Damon, Jaden Smith, scientists and engineers from all around the world, studying and solving Earth’s water problems and they were about to tell my babies just how horrible the situation is.
Droughts
Floods
Pollution
Sanitation issues
Lead in the water
Climate change
I don’t want my sweet boys to know what I know. I don’t want them to feel the pain I feel. Ignorance after all, is bliss. But I can’t say my boys are completely sheltered from the climate crisis. Our family has evacuated three years in a row from life threatening wildfires in Sonoma County, California. We’ve personally witnessed the devastation of hurricanes that just sit on top of us in North Carolina, washing out our local parks and roads, hundreds of miles from the ocean. NPR is the background noise of our life. I teach environmental science. They aren’t completely unaware!
But to have to tell them to their face that the world we know today is changing fast, struck me with a full blow of guilt and fear. By the time they are my age the availability of water, food and energy may be very different for them and they will have to adapt to the changes.
So right then and there I put all the Project Wet and Aquatic Wild curriculum guides away and we took up a study of physics.
Just kidding.
I’ve taught climate change many times as a high school teacher. And since I left that formal education environment and became a small environmental education business owner, I’ve attended multiple trainings and have learned so much about how best to broach this topic. I have since learned all the ways I was doing it wrong!
My first misstep in teaching climate change is thinking it’s too controversial, too sad or too much for students to learn. There is a small piece of this puzzle that every student at any age can learn, and by introducing the topic scientifically and at the appropriate developmental level, it’s a lesson worth teaching and learning.
The fact is, my boys have an ecological footprint, the size of which, at this point in their lives, is largely determined by my husband and I, and the household we run. But they are both entering adolescence with all the independent tendencies that accompany their maturity which means, away from my supervision they may litter, leave all the house lights on while home alone; they may opt for the meat-lovers pizza over the veggie-lovers when out with friends. Will their first car be plugged-in or gassed-up? Their decisions will impact Earth’s climate, (as mine do too) so if I bury my broken heart in the sand, I will not equip them with the tools they need to lead their peers by their example; to make choices that aren’t always about convenience but about responsibility.
But let’s step back for one moment. Normally these days, I’m teaching preschoolers. Let me be very clear. I do not teach doom-n-gloom to preschool students. I teach them to LOVE their planet, hoping they will develop a desire to protect it themselves. But even preschoolers have some understanding of our impacts on our planet; they bring it up sometimes. I don’t deny their concerns, or shut down their thoughts, but I don’t allow it to occupy our time together. I try to equip students with strategies they are actually in control of at their young age, so they feel like part of the solution. Three, four and five year-olds pride themselves on how helpful they are. “Don’t step on bugs, they are nice and help the Earth!” ‘Don’t throw your trash on the ground, we don’t want any animals to eat it!” They don’t have control over single use plastic purchases or the optimal setting on the thermostat. Those conversations are saved for another day.
Teachers, this is a call to action. Let’s not shy away from teaching our students about climate and climate change. I’ve made plenty of mistakes attempting it in the past, mistakes I hope to impart on you to save you some trouble. Purdue University professors Andrew Hirsch and Daniel Shepardson wrote a wonderful article that has helped me develop better climate change teaching strategies, starting with all the things I’ve ever done wrong. I encourage you to read the article yourself (there are pedagogy suggestions in the article also).
First of all, the data on climate change is deeply accepted by the scientific community. When we teach the science side-by-side with the perspectives of climate change deniers, it diminishes the scientific credibility of the data and gives voice to non-scientific theories.
Secondly, if we allow students to draw their own conclusions about whether or not humans are impacting our climate, we again are second guessing the years and years of cross-disciplinary scientific consensus.
Finally, allowing students to debate climate change, encourages contradictions of the evidence.
I used to do all three! I knew some of my high school students had opinions on the topic and I wanted to hold space for their viewpoints. But in doing so, I encouraged dangerous rhetoric. Not that there isn’t space for debate and discussion of viewpoints. After the science is thoughtfully taught, students can debate solutions. They can consider political policies in various communities or countries or between candidates up for election. They can debate which clean energy resources are the best for reducing carbon emissions. They can imagine policies for governments to adopt for how to handle climate change refugees. But giving a student room to deny the science on climate change is the equivalent of allowing them to debate the answer to a math equation as fully understood as 4 + 4 = 8. It just does equal 8. And the gratuitous release of carbon from sequestered sources since the advent of the industrial revolution has added too much carbon dioxide and methane to our otherwise life sustaining greenhouse effect and has all too rapidly started to change our climate. At this point, this is just fact. Teach it as such, and if they don’t want to believe they play a personal role in the problems or the solutions to climate change, that you will have to accept.
I do not foresee a return to a high school classroom for myself anytime soon so that will leave me with the always curious preschoolers I have the absolute joy to teach. I’ve made a commitment to teach climate, at least one lesson per year (I design and teach 11 each school year). Note I said climate, not climate change. Having a good grasp of the difference between weather and climate is enough for our youngest learners and I would argue, that is true for students up to about the third grade. Other topics like the water cycle, carbon cycle, understanding their own local climate and how local plants and animals are adapted to that climate, are all topics younger students can emotionally handle and developmentally understand. And all of these topics are important for later, one day, when grasping the science and magnitude of climate change.
Greta Thunberg is a teenage, Swedish climate activist who has inspired millions of people worldwide to campaign for climate action now. I read once that her work actually stemmed from her own anxiety about the problem and she willed herself to act rather than remain despondent on the issue. And for a long time, her protests were a one-person effort.
Leave them with hope!
Always finish up a climate change study with practical actions students can take to contribute to the solutions. Keep everything age-appropriate:
*Start a citizen science project in-class to aid research
*Encourage Meatless Monday’s for your class
*Research social media groups students can join
*Encourage students to reduce their use of plastics
I don’t wish climate change anxiety on any child, but I do submit that knowledge is power and our future change-makers need a sound education in the science of climate change to be the effective leaders we need them to be.
If humans are contributing to climate change, we can also reverse course! Always leave them with HOPE!
With gratitude, Rachel
Teaching Resources for Teaching Climate Change
Visit Project Wet or Project Learning Tree for local trainings
Here in North Carolina, connect professionally with Environmental Educators of NC
Ask professionals to come in to give special presentations
NASA, NOAA, and National Geographic Education offer free lessons and teacher trainings