Kids and climate! Back-to-school edition

Empowering climate education, heatwaves and misinformation, and reducing school emissions

GOOD NEWS

Kids will be heading back to school soon, and it’s inspiring to see them taking charge and coming up with creative new climate solutions - and adults giving them the space and resources to do so!

In Indiana, for example, two teachers (including Kirstin Milks, PhD, whose story is in my book Saving Us), two scientists and an education specialist teamed up to create the Climate Engineering Teaching Module. It helps students develop and apply their critical thinking and problem-solving skills to climate. One lesson inspired high school freshman Dwayne Murphy to take old technology from steam engines and modify it to provide a clean energy way to power a car. Other students came up with ideas for solar helicopters and artificial trees.

That’s why it is more important than ever that climate change is taught in classrooms. “The time is now to include climate education as a key climate risk mitigation strategy — along with energy transformation, land uses and water — and to make climate education a mandatory part of the national curriculum,” said Radhika Iyengar of the Columbia Climate School’s Center for Sustainable Development.

Organizations like Planet Ed, which is pushing for collective action on climate change in children’s media, early childhood, K-12 education, and higher education, are crucial to speeding this up. That’s why I co-chair their climate task force and helped craft the four simple messages their materials focus on: (1) Earth is our home, (2) it’s getting hotter because of us, (3) climate is changing now and it’s impacting us, and (4) together, we can make the changes we need for a brighter future.

NOT-SO-GOOD NEWS

Mothers taking home their children from school with umbrellas in 2024 heatwave in Rangamati, Bangladesh. Photo by Zaheed Sarwer Khan on Shutterstock

Around the world, many schools don’t have air conditioning. This includes some schools in North America, particularly those in older buildings. As heatwaves become stronger and more frequent, schools are closing when the classrooms become too hot to safely educate students there. Losing instructional time is bad for students and parents alike.

Despite the risks climate change poses to students, in the U.S. some states are moving in the wrong direction. In Florida, the state Department of Education has approved using climate denial videos from PragerU, a well-known font of disinformation, in the state’s public schools. (Curious about these videos? In this article, Kristina Dahl from the Union of Concerned Scientists fact-checks one of them.)

Then, this past May, Florida’s Governor DeSantis signed a bill that removes most mentions of climate change from state law. (That bill also prioritizes natural gas use and bans offshore wind installations.) Now, state education officials are reaching out to textbook companies asking them to remove references to climate change. As climate impacts on Florida escalate, this puts everyone at risk.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Public schools have a big climate footprint. In the US alone, they operate nearly half a million buses and serve some 7 billion meals to students each year.

There are many ways schools can cut their carbon footprint and save money, from installing solar panels on their campuses to switching to heat pumps from gas and oil furnaces. But the majority of school districts still lack the very first step - a climate action plan.

How can you help? Raise your voice! Attend your local school board meeting and recommend action. Talk to school leaders about the importance of addressing climate change. Need talking points? We’ve got a lot of them over at Science Moms!

Encourage students to raise the issue of climate change in school, and have their classmates write letters to the school board about the need to act. WWF-UK has developed climate change resources for secondary school students and teachers that help educate kids and empower them to take action - find them here.