By Annalisa Belliss, Sarah Ranney & Rebecca Franke
When considering the impending challenge of climate change, it’s clear that the lasting impacts and subsequent solutions will not be realized within our lifetime. Young people will be key in shaping our future responses and mitigating the effects of climate change — and that means it's critical to provide them with high quality, science-based climate literacy education.
The Bay Chapter has convened a Climate Literacy Committee to work toward this goal at the local level. Meeting monthly and open to all interested parties, the committee has drawn together a group of concerned parents, teachers, educators, and community members to take action.
The Climate Literacy Committee is currently drafting a resolution that will be presented to Bay Area school districts for adoption. The resolution will require that high school students graduate “climate literate,” and that all current and forthcoming textbooks appropriately represent the severity of the climate crisis and the impact of human activities.
Last year, California approved new frameworks for the Next Generation Science Standards and the history-social science curriculum — the first updates since the 1990s — making our resolution even more timely. The new frameworks do include standards for environmental education, but they won't necessarily ensure climate literacy. Our resolution seeks a commitment from school districts to be more specific about climate-education curricula and actually teach to those standards.
Would you like to take this resolution to your local school district? Know any educators or influencers in public education? Want to get involved? Email clc@sfbaysc.org.
Image: Postcards to State Senators Kevin de León and Ricardo Lara in support of Senate Bill 424 for environmental education.