High School Climate Education for a Resilient Future

In California, there is an urgent need for high school standards-aligned materials that support the integration of climate science and strategies for mitigation and adaptation. This exploratory study aims to design, implement, and test climate science and history professional learning materials and experiences for high school teachers. By leveraging existing science and history-social science materials from the Understanding Global Change Project and the California History-Social Science Project (CHSSP), the program will develop curricular planning tools and lessons to help teachers integrate climate literacy into their instructional units. The goal is to provide students with the knowledge to understand and respond to the social and environmental issues associated with the climate crisis. The project team, consisting of scientists, historians, and educators, will work in regions facing droughts, wildfires, rising temperatures, and the related social, economic, and health challenges. This project will co-design the curriculum and professional development (PD), involving 70 high school teachers and a Professional Learning Community, under the supervision of a diverse advisory board, developing materials and planning tools for science and history-social science climate change learning experiences. The project builds upon existing research suggesting that teaching the history of science and using a socio-scientific perspective can engage students in meaningful learning experiences related to local issues. PD workshops will be conducted in school districts serving low-income and traditionally underrepresented students from rural and urban communities in the San Francisco Bay Area. The resulting instructional materials and PD recordings will be made accessible online to teachers nationwide.

Currently, climate change is often taught as a separate topic within K-12 education, rather than being integrated throughout year-long learning to reflect its interconnectedness with ecosystems and human society. The primary question this study seeks to answer is: How can interdisciplinary science and history climate change PD support teachers in connecting content standards to climate change caused by human activities and the need for societal action, integrating climate change learning throughout the academic year? Building on project co-design with teachers, the study will use assessment and survey tools to determine teacher knowledge and attitudes about the climate crisis, systems thinking, and the nature of science. This work will expand the use of various existing assessment and survey tools to determine teacher knowledge of and attitudes about the climate crisis, systems thinking, and the nature of science. The findings will provide guidance to curriculum designers and professional development providers on how to support teachers in embedding climate change across science and history instruction.