Causes.com
| 9.30.22
New Connecticut Law Requires State Schools to Teach Climate Change
Should more states do the same?
What’s the story?
- A new Connecticut law requires state public schools to include climate change in their curriculum. The Next Generation Science Standards was incorporated into the state’s budget implementer bill, mandating that lessons on human-caused climate change be integrated into science classes starting in July 2023.
- The new lessons will give students a deeper understanding of how human activities have created changes in the climate and the adverse effects on various populations. Students will also learn about possible climate solutions and their costs, socio-environmental impacts, and credibility.
- While 90% of Connecticut schools already have lessons on climate change, this mandate ensures that budget cuts or political views will not impact climate education, explained Rep. Christine Palm, Vice Chair of the Environment Committee of the Connecticut General Assembly. Palm added:
“Climate science is often one of the first things, along with arts, to go when budgets are tight. A lot of poorer communities weren’t being taught this, and that’s really a travesty, because people of color and people in cities are more affected by climate change…For me, it was a matter of environmental justice.”
Climate miseducation in the U.S.
- In recent years, climate experts and advocates have brought attention to the public’s misunderstanding of climate change, mainly because politicians, corporations, and global leaders misrepresent the crisis. Classrooms have become a battleground over climate science and education. Some criticize schools for ignoring the crisis entirely, while others inaccurately portray the issue and its solutions.
- A Columbia national survey found that science teachers in most middle and high schools devote one to two hours of climate change education each year, while 30% incorporate less than an hour of focus into their lessons. The Yale Program on Climate Change also noted the lack of recognition of scientific consensus across middle and high schools in the U.S., pointing to a overarching issue of scientific miseducation.
- Many schools are not actively updating their curriculum with the newest scientific understanding of climate change. The National Center on Science Education reported that 30% of teachers tell their students that “many scientists” believe the climate is warming due to natural causes, which is an inaccurate representation of the common opinion. This antiquated viewpoint sends a mixed message to students that climate change is still debated in the scientific community.
- Katie Worth, an investigative journalist and author of “Miseducation: How Climate Change Is Taught in America,” visited classrooms across the U.S. to examine climate education. Worth found that many students’ understanding of climate change was hindered by corporate and political influences. She highlighted the role that oil corporations and lobbyists play in manufacturing the public’s doubt in scientists and how this impacts climate solutions and education. Worth told The Revelator:
“Education is by nature a very diverse enterprise in this country. There’s no national curriculum and we have 3 million teachers educating 50 million children enrolled in 100,000 public schools. Each of those teachers is teaching based on state standards,...expertise and their style.”
Public consensus on climate change
- A 2019 nationwide poll by NPR/Ipsos found that most Americans favor teaching kids about climate change. Nearly four out of five respondents, including two-thirds of Republicans and nine in ten Democrats, agreed that the subject should be taught in schools.
- The Texas Education Agency surveyed science educators across the state to learn what they would like added to the standard, to which one in four asked for more climate change lessons. None asked for more content on fossil fuels.
- A 2021 landmark study found that American youth have high levels of anxiety revolving around the climate crisis. Out of the 10,000 young people surveyed, aged 16-25 years, nearly 60% reported feeling “very worried” or “extremely worried” about climate change, with many feeling sad, angry, afraid, and powerless. Nearly half of the participants said these feelings impacted their daily lives.
- These findings led experts to believe that giving students a chance to accurately grasp the concepts of climate change and learn about the various solutions will decrease this anxiety, make for a more hopeful generation, and encourage students to take action. The United Nations climate action page addresses this issue, stating:
“In the classroom, young people can be taught the impact of global warming and learn how to adapt to climate change. Education empowers all people, but especially motivates the young to take action. Knowing the facts helps eliminate the fear of an issue which is frequently colored by doom and gloom in the public arena.”
How do you feel about Connecticut adding climate change to its standard curriculum? Should more states do the same?
-Jamie Epstein
(Photo credit: iStock/Wavebreakmedia)
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Our children will inherit a world where the impact of climate change will be much worse than it is today. Of course they should be educated on the realities of climate change because that is the world that we will leave for them.
It was predicted some 20 years ago that when the global average temperature increased by 3 degrees C, the planet will go into an uncontrollable global chemical reaction where the added heat melts reflective polar ice, huge methane deposited in the permafrost from hundreds of thousands of years of prior surface life and modules of methane from prior aquatic life will will greatly accelerate climate change. Today, that threshold is less than one degree C away. The planet has already crossed the first threshold which means than whenever the world reaches net zero, the climate will remain as bad as gets by then for many years.
There is CO2 still in the atmosphere from the beginnings of the industrial revolution. There are currently no known man-made ways to safely extract excess CO2 from the atmosphere at the scale needed to make a difference, particularly when the natural processes used by the planet are being compromised by the warming oceans and shifting precipitation problems.
Children have amazing unrestricted imaginations and a clarity of thought unfettered by current ‘group-think’ or the established norms of what is not possible. Their comments are often very insightful. It is this kind of imaginative thinking that will be the key to resolving the many complex interacting issues that will be need to be resolved to deal with the global threat of a rapidly accelerating rate of climate change, and they need to understand the basics early on, while their imaginations are less restricted.
I recall an issue where a semi truck van got wedged under a low clearance bridge. Large specialty tow trucks were brought to the site and large gas fueled diamond wheel were being fueled and checked for operation to cut away the van- as they awaited the county engineer to assess methods least likely to damage the bridge. A ten year old asked asked the police officer who was keeping the spectators back what was happening and after he explained the situation to her, she asked him why they didn’t ‘just let the air of the truck tires’. He told the on-site responders and instantly the problem was solved.
It is that clarity of unfettered imagination that can be unleashed if our children understand the basics about climate change and the complexity of issues needed to deal with it. There is a reason for the adage regarding insights coming from ‘the mouths of babes’.
Resolving the Climate Crisis is not just about green energy, is not just about much more resilient human infrastructure, is not just about the humanitarian and economic consequences of climate change, is not just dealing with migrating human and animal populations escaping uninhabitable lands due to loss of potable water sheds, arable lands, unbearable temperatures, increasing storm intensity, sustained droughts or rising ocean levels, it is not just about improved agri-science and biotechnology innovations to assure that already constrained food chains can feed the world’s population, it is not just about the need for global diplomacy to resolve the many geo-social-humanitarian-political issues which will arise, it is not just about being able to assure that no appealing ‘solution’ has potential unintended catastrophic consequences when deployed at the scale needed to be effective, it is not just about developing a complex intertwined fault tree analysis of all the ‘solutions’ needed to assure that they work together and that there are clear fall back actions that can be deployed should any ‘solution’ not meet expectations. It is about ALL of these things.
Let’s help our children cope with what will be their future and also help to unleash some youthful energy and imagination into the search for solutions to the very complex issues of dealing with and safely thwarting the impact of climate change.
It appears everyone has an opinion. Which is good. Teaching climate change is teaching common sense. Every rancher, farmer, 4-H, FFA student is already and has been taught about climate change. It is all about how to raise agriculture products to feed our people dealing with less irrigation, higher ambient temperature, less fossil fuel products. This has been going on for many years. Long before we knew a whole lot about climate change. Education is the answer. The more we all know, the better we will be. Starting with the first grade, in smal increments can not hurt anyone. I grew up on a farm, so I feel this is a good thing. But that is only my opinion, and opinions are only a feeling. Nothing scientific.
If we expect to have future leaders in this country, we need to teach our children scientific facts. This education was apparently lacking when the current crop of Republican officeholders were in school. It's a shame that they haven't picked up a scientific education since then! Let's not cripple our students by not teaching them science.
Climate change is REAL ... and people cannot LOWER temperatures, lower tides, increase snow packs, etc. CLIMATE CHANGE has been occurring since time began & is a REAL POWER GRAB SCAM.
WORSHIPPING the EARTH god us the new religion for modern pagans.
Should we teach the truth? Yes
Should we teach science? Yes
Should we teach relevant, timely, effects of global warming that have, are, and will negatively impact our planet for years to come? YES
Should we teach STEAM? YES, YES, YES!!! https://onlinedegrees.sandiego.edu/steam-education-in-schools/
And one community, Babcock Ranch, which is just 12 miles NE of Fort Meyers where Ian caused so much damage, proves how Solar Power will become more and more a part of our future. Theses kids will be able to learn a great deal from the success of Babcock Ranch.
"This 100% solar community endured Hurricane Ian with no loss of power and minimal damage"
https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/02/us/solar-babcock-ranch-florida-hurricane-ian-climate/index.html
From the article ...
"The storm uprooted trees and tore shingles from roofs, but other than that Grande said there is no major damage. Its residents say Babcock Ranch is proof that an eco-conscious and solar-powered town can withstand the wrath of a near-Category 5 storm.
"We have proof of the case now because [the hurricane] came right over us," Nancy Chorpenning, a 68-year-old Babcock Ranch resident, told CNN. "We have water, electricity, internet — and we may be the only people in Southwest Florida who are that fortunate." "We're very, very blessed and fortunate to not be experiencing what they're experiencing now in Sanibel Island and Fort Myers Beach," Grande said. "In the times that we're living in right now with climate change, the beach is not the place to live or have a business.""
It is a stares right thing. Should we follow not really.
Climate Change should be taught in Public Schools ONLY IF the TRUTH is what is being taught. There is no Science that proves that Mankind is a cause of Climate Change or Global Warming or that Anything Mankind is currently doing is the Cause of or the Stop of to this issue. There IS some Science that shows that the Rate of Climate Change is very miniscule and that the Scare Tactics used by some Politicians and others is just that, A Scare Tactic. The End is Not Near. Natural Disasters are not more and worse! The facts are exactly the opposite. So, if the Truth is taught, then Yes. If not, then no State should be exploiting Children by Indoctrination in Political Ideology, like CRT!! In Fact, any school that does that sort of thing IS Abusing Children and Society!!! Should be a Felony of a Very Serious Level.
And, Right Now, we have so.many other things for YOU Politicians to be working on. Like getting Climate Change Spending Out of those Bills that have been passed recently. Getting our Borders CLOSED. Pausing ALL Immigration. Deporting ALL Illegal Aliens ( my FL Senators, will you work to get this done?!? A simple Yes will do. If no, a Plain English short answer will be appreciated)!!! Shutting down the IRS ( FL Senators, Your position on this?!?)!!! Restarting USA Energy Production, ALL Forms with Trump Era Standards with no Biden Era Restrictions?!?(FL Senators, Your Position?!?)!!!
Teaching just what we are doing to our planet and its inhabitants is IMPERATIVE if we are going to try and reverse the damage. As the planet goes, so go we.
Absolutely!
Absolutely YES. Make it a national requirement, I say.
Unfortunately, teaching climate change issues require teachers to be knowledgeable as well. I would say first thing is to require universities/colleges/community colleges to have climate change courses and their impact as well as ideas on how to fix that other than the obvious ones: driving less, driving EV, relying on wind turbines, etc. So students can get a quality education from well-educated teachers on climate change.
My daughter is a graduate student studying Environmental Studies and Research. She hopes to teach companies on how to modify their system to help minimize pollution to the air. I was delighted with the quality of courses she's taking and it did make me wonder if true of other universities or not.
I would strongly add in view of the worldwide rise of oceans and their impacts on costs and below sea levels in the mainland area to teach alternative living like floating cities, and regulations to regulate the type of houses to be built that can withstand hurricanes, tornadoes, and harsh weather. And it should be a worldwide mandate, instead of by countries (we know that's impossible, but worth mentioning).
It's a no-brainer. Climate change is real.
Any state that denies that climate change is real should be barred from receiving FEMA aid when a natural disaster hits
Of course it should be taught in every school in the country. Like the little 11 year old girl, Greta that first told us all about it years and years ago and we still are doing nothing to prevent the worst of it as witnessed in Florida last week! Wake up and smell the toast!!!!!
DENIAL of NATURE...doesn;t mean it can't still kick you is the ass.
YO! Massie, Paul, McConnell....WTFU
VOTE FOR DEMOCRATS
Science is clear despite what Republicans say. Teach facts in school, not religious indoctrination.
Teach them when you sabotage a pipeline and cause it to leak into the ocean it's bad for the environment. Send joe and his admin to the class
And today brings up some more new interesting advances these kids can learn about on the subject of 'Recycling Solar Panels'. The story was broadcast on CNBC by Diana Olick. Story and video here ...
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/03/solarcycle-partners-with-sunrun-to-recycle-and-re-use-old-solar-panels.html
Exerpt...
"Solar panels may be the epitome of green hardware, but as the technology advances and more powerful panels take over the market, older panels are turning into harmful waste. Now one California-based startup, SolarCycle, is taking advantage of that waste by recycling components of the panels and selling them off for profit.
SolarCycle claims it can inexpensively extract about 95% of the high-value materials in solar panels, like silver, silicon, copper and aluminum. Those can then be repurposed or returned to the supply chain, creating a circular solar economy."
Renewables getting better and better by the day!
Hey Reps., Catch Up or 🖕!
It's a critical subject in our times and should be covered in science and social studies curriculum.
Yes please, educate our children on the realities of climate change. Maybe the next generation of bright minds can find real solutions.
it could be the most important thing they teach
They need all the information they can get to be able to adapt to the changes and prevent further changes ( if that is possible)
They deserve the truth of all things I wish I was taught the truth and I'm a lil resentful that I was not.
It's a great idea. It only takes 7th grade science to understand climate change, so not teaching it would ruin education.
Wish more elected officials stood up for their constituents and progeny.
I'm not convinced this isn't some crazy conspiracy theory for Bill Gates and the likes to make billions on the American people. Our world caters to all these elites and their billion dollar businesses.
Our government is no longer 'for the people'.
When other countries do their share, then maybe I will reconsider the facts and consequences. As of now, there are a million ways to address emissions, burn clean fuel, etc.