‘Face it head on’: Connecticut makes climate change studies compulsory

Enshrining the curriculum in law insulates the subject from budget cuts and culture wars
related to the climate crisis

Maya Yang
Sat 17 Dec 2022 08.00 GMT

Starting next July, Connecticut will become one of the first states in America to mandate
climate change studies across its public schools as part of its science curriculum.

The new law passed earlier this year comes as part of the state’s attempts to address con-
cerns over the short duration – and in some cases, absence – of climate change studies in
classrooms. The requirement follows in the footsteps of New Jersey, which in 2020 be-
came the first state to mandate climate change education across its K-12 learning stan-
dards.

Currently, nearly 90% of public schools across Connecticut include climate change studies
in their curriculums. However, by mandating it as part of state law from grades five to 12,
climate education will effectively become protected from budget cuts and climate-denying
political views at a time when education in the US has become a serious culture war bat-
tleground.

“The conservative turn in our country … often starts at a very hyper-local level of local
town boards of education. There is this push towards anti-intellectualism, anti-science …
anti-reason, and I didn’t want local boards of education to have the power to overturn the
curriculum and say, ‘climate change is too political,’” Connecticut state representative
Christine Palm told the Guardian.

Palm, who is vice chair of the Connecticut general assembly’s environment committee,
first launched her legislative efforts to pass a climate education mandate in 2018. Through
various surveys and petitions, Palm found that to many students and educators, climate
change education is either not being taught at all in schools or not being taught enough.

“Anecdotally, I knew that there was no uniform approach and that I felt there should be,”
Palm explained. She went on to introduce her climate education bill annually over the last
four years until it was finally included in the state budget implementer bill earlier this year.

“In the public schools, the program of instruction offered shall include at least the following
subject matter, as taught by legally qualified teachers … science, which shall include the
climate change curriculum,” the current requirement reads, marking a change in language
from “which may” to “which shall”.

“It sounds like a simple change, but legislatively makes all the difference between a law
and an option,” said Palm.

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), a set of K-12 science content standards,
are currently adopted by Connecticut and include standards pertaining to climate change
studies which more educators will rely on as the requirement kicks in next year. So far,
only 20 states and DC have adopted the NGSS

“They are based on a framework for K-12 science education and the National Academies’
reports, which are developed by scientists and educators defining … not just what is im-
portant to know, but what is the best way for kids to learn science,” said Vanessa Wol-
brink, an associate director at NextGenScience.

“I think a lot of the time, those who might oppose the teaching of climate science might be-
lieve that the standards are kind of subjective or would prevent true objective instruction
but it’s really the other way around,” said Wolbrink.

Youth activists at Cop27 in Egypt hold signs encouraging leaders to limit warming to 1.5
degrees. Photograph: Nariman El-Mofty/AP
“These standards … really emphasize student data analysis and evidence-based argu-
mentation. This emphasis means in order to meet the standards, students are demonstrat-
ing critical thinking skills, they’re making these objective arguments with data and evi-
dence,” she explained.

Depending on the grade levels, the standards vary. According to the NGSS website, mid-
dle school students who demonstrate understanding of the human impact on the environ-
ment can “apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a
human impact on the environment”, among other abilities.

Meanwhile, one of the learning goals high school students are expected to meet in regards
to climate studies includes the ability to “use a computational representation to illustrate
the relationships among Earth systems and how those relationships are being modified
due to human activity”.

To help educators update their curriculums, Connecticut’s department of environmental

protection (DEEP) is providing the state’s department of education with various resources,
including those that will complement NGSS.

“A primary focus for DEEP is to provide hands-on investigations and data connections that
reflect local needs and action. This makes things much more tangible and useful for teach-
ers, as they apply Next Generation Science Standards and common core,” DEEP environ-
mental educator Susan Quincy said, citing another set of academic standards focusing on
math and English language arts.

As the state prepares for next year’s curriculum changes, experts remain cautious about
the ways to relay information on the human-caused climate crisis to young students.

A global survey conducted last year amongst 10,000 children and young people across ten
countries, including the US, found that 59% of respondents were very or extremely worried
about the climate crisis. Over 50% reported feeling emotions including sadness, anxious-
ness, anger, powerlessness and guilt. Seventy-five percent of respondents said that they
think the future is frightening.
With climate-related anxiety increasingly spreading among young people, many educators
are adamant about not only teaching issues but also solutions.

“Working with these young kids, some of the things I think are most important is making
sure children get not only accurate information but also hopeful information. We need to
make sure that kids learn about solutions and creativity and resilience as much as they
learn about causes and effects,” said Lauren Madden, a science educator and professor at
the College of New Jersey.

Madden also stresses the importance of equity-focused conversations when discussing

the climate crisis in classrooms.

“We have to acknowledge that climate change does not affect all people equally … There
are kids in lower-income communities, communities of color and immigrant communities
that experience flooding and power outages and things like that … in a much more magni-
fied way than others,” she said.

“It’s critical that when we’re talking to kids at that upper elementary, middle school, high
school level, we’re ensuring that we are coming from an equity-based perspective.”

With curriculums getting updated, educators such as Margaret Wang are also emphasizing
contextual and interdisciplinary learning.

As the chief operating officer of SubjectToClimate, an online platform that offers teachers
various materials on the climate crisis, Wang helps other educators integrate climate
change into their existing teaching materials.

“Climate change is a highly interdisciplinary subject of sciences, but there are also … ele-
ments of writing [such as] being able to analyze media literacy. There are elements of
math [such as] being able to calculate and grasp its effects over time using statistics and
science. And there’s art as a way to mobilize collective action towards,” she said.

With less than a year left until climate change education is integrated across all of Con-
necticut’s public schools, lawmakers such as Palm are well-aware of the pushback that
such a mandate will receive.

Palm said she tends to not get involved in matters involving local boards of education.
However, she has in recent years noticed the impact of parents pushing back against edu-
cators over certain subjects such as LGBTQ+ rights, slavery and the climate crisis.

“In my experience, at least traditionally, [local boards of education] have been extremely
bipartisan, hardworking and thoughtful administrators … [but] increasingly, that’s being af-
fected by these vigilante groups of parents coming in and saying … they don’t want kids
learning about [these subjects] because it’s too threatening to their delusional way of life,”
said Palm.

“We absolutely have got to face it head on, and it starts when children are very young. We
need to arm them with the tools to be part of a solution to a problem they had no hand in
creating.”