If a child receives a small flower as a gift, will they understand the obligations that go along with taking care of their new plant? Will they know that a plant needs attention, water and sunshine in order to grow into a strong flower? If this child wishes to see a brightly colored garden one day, then this child must be taught the responsibilities necessary to care for a living thing, whether this may be a seedling or the Earth itself. Due to the fact that previous generations have ignored their deleterious actions regarding worldwide climate changes and past education systems have failed to teach the youth about ways to maintain an environmentally safe mentality, modern adults have found themselves in a tragic cycle of living a careless lifestyle. Suzanne Goldenberg, an environment correspondent for The Guardian, determined that school children today spend “only an hour or two in the course of an academic year learning about climate change in middle and high school” and a majority of what they are learning is “confusing or simply wrong” (Goldenberg). Global warming has become a household concept; yet, why is it that, during a planetary emergency, school systems forget the importance of environmental education? Considering that human behavior is scientifically proven to be the cause of the worsening state of the Earth, all individuals should be taught how to care for the precious planet they call home. Accurate and complete education to both teachers and students will help people today address the effects they have on the progression of climate changes, assist in the understanding of the future impacts of global warming, and encourage an increased worldwide awareness of climate change related trends. 

Before anything can be done to reverse the downward spiral that is climate change, there is an extremely important fact that must be presented. National Geographic, a world leader in geography, has boldly stated that climate change “is not a myth, hoax, or conspiracy” (National Geographic). In addition to this, Nat Geo has said that humans are the sole reason why the planet is warming, due to the fact that “only CO2 and other human emitted gases have [increased], forming a thickening blanket that traps heat at the Earth’s surface” (National Geographic).  But, most importantly, Nat Geo believes in a change and has no doubt that there is a cure to this climate crisis. This change begins in the classroom.   

 Imagine the moment a child initially steps into the classroom on the first day of kindergarten, as their brains begin throbbing with curiosity. Questions are uncontrollably, and quite rapidly, firing off their tongues. Yet, despite their lack of concentration at times, children are incredibly quick learners. According to Diane W. Bales, a professor for the Introduction to Human Development classes at the University of Georgia, “School-aged children can be experts at skateboarding after only a few minutes of practice, but grandfathers usually take a little longer” (Bales). Therefore, when a child begins school, it is most effective for education systems to introduce a child to the importance of taking care of the environment. As the children grow, their brains will address increasingly difficult information concerning the effects humans have on climate change. However, school systems still do not include global warming in early education and have left out the topic of climate change in the academic curriculum for grades kindergarten through fifth. PBS Parents provides parents a breakdown of the key concepts a child should grasp in the “many subjects that kids learn about in school” (PBS). They mention that a child will not begin to learn about the Earth until they enter the second grade, yet the only general topics covered are “how the Earth changes over time and how we learn about the history of the Earth through fossils” (PBS). In addition to this, the next time PBS Parents suggests that a child will learn anything remotely close to global warming is in the fifth-grade when students look at “Earth and its resources, and how people use and affect those resources” (PBS). Children are the future and in order to reduce the severity in which humans impact the Earth, it is essential to educate every child on climate changes. This way, they will gain the necessary information and useful tools for one to change the world.  

It is unfortunate that nowhere in these curriculum predictions is there a strict focus to the environment and human activity under the subject of science. Still, what is worse is that “fewer than half of teachers reported receiving any training in climate science at university,” said Josh Rosenau, the policy director for the National Center for Science in Education (Goldenberg). Therefore, teachers should not take all of the blame. Randy L. Bell, an education professor at Oregon State University, has seconded Rosenau, and he believes that “a critical factor related to this lack of achievement is that the vast majority of elementary and secondary teachers do not, themselves, possess the desired understandings of the nature of science” (Bell). This major flaw in the average education system contributes to an inaccurate approach to critical thinking. If the educators, who are supposed to be qualified in teaching children, do not possess the knowledge necessary to properly instruct in the classroom, then who does? Danielle Cranmer, who is a member of the Rainforest Alliance with a Bachelor’s degree in Soil Science, agrees with Bell. She mentions in her article, 5 Pro Tips for Talking to Kids About Climate Change (Without Freaking Them Out), that “kids get precious little exposure to climate change education in school, despite the fact it’s going to impact every aspect of their adult lives” (Cranmer).  But before the future generation of scientists can become fully equipped to save the planet, their teachers must adequately comprehend the material through both their collegiate and post-graduate education.

It is vital that future school teachers have completed the fundamental, required courses in order to one day be leading instruction in a classroom full of young students. Ironically, these teachers receive their diplomas without fully understanding the nature of science, in global climate change or in decision making on socio-scientific issues (Bell). Randy L. Bell has developed an experimental graduate course which used 4th-year students and postgraduate MT students in the elementary education program as his participants. At the beginning of this course, students took a pre-instruction assessment to test what they knew about global climate change. Moving on throughout the course, students met with scientists, observed weather patterns, and most importantly, created scientific models which they would use in their own classrooms to explain the greenhouse effect. The course produced a significant increase in the participants knowledge related to global climate change. These students also showed increased understanding of global warming concepts in their post-instruction assessment. For example, the “desired understanding of theory or law connected to greenhouse effect” increased from an initial 7% understanding to 73%, and whether “Scientists differ on whether global warming is happening” increased from 40% to 73% understanding (Bell). After the course was completed, 93% of the students responded that they learned about the nature of science through studying global climate change (Bell). Education students learned incredibly valuable information through Bell’s experiment. Considering this data, it is undeniably obvious that this course, or a similar one, should be required for all college students studying to become teachers. Once this course is implemented in the college curriculum for students studying education, the cycle of poor climate change education will begin to break because newly qualified teachers will start to filter back into the education system. However, this is only step one, since it does not consider the teachers who are long past graduation and are no longer under the category of new instructors. 

Due to the difficulty in bringing masses of school teachers back to the student side of the classroom, alternative re-information sources propose to solve this conundrum. The College of Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences at the University of Stanford has created the Climate Change Education Project, which offers an entire reformation to the way future generations are educated that does not require current teachers to go back to school. This project equips educators with simulations and data, resources that distinguish global warming facts from myths, and international scientific reports. Within the Climate Change Education Project, teachers are given a variety of options for workshops, one of which is the Our Climate Our Future program. As an award-winning climate education resource for teachers, Our Climate Our Future has provided educators with climate change videos, interactive trivia questions, and climate change lesson plans. Through this program, teachers are also granted access to animations that tell the story of climate science and multiple interviews of young people from across the world who describe how climate change has impacted their lives. Our Climate Our Future has been so impactful thus far that elementary and middle school instructors claimed they “learned a lot as [teachers]” and their students “understand the science behind so much of what is happening in our world today” (ACE). The instructors also noted their excitement towards using Our Climate Our Future lesson plans and resources for the education of young students in their future classrooms, and said that showing “how climate change impacts real people, their age, is powerful” (ACE). Teachers who took their own time to educate themselves about the environment in order to provide a better curriculum for their students went above and beyond average education system expectations. If schools across the country take the same steps that certain individual teachers took, more children than ever before will understand the future impacts of global warming and be aware of climate change trends. An unnoticed benefit that comes out of this type of program, is that teachers learn about the effects humans have on the environment and become motivated to change the ways they live their lives, which in turn will build trust in educators. When workshop programs like Our Climate Our Future are required for current teachers in addition to climate change courses implemented in the college curriculum for education students, the number of people who are knowledgeable in the science of climate change will exponentially increase.

After soon-to-be and present teachers are appropriately informed about global warming, their students are ready to be taught how to care for the Earth. Yet, despite the importance of content in newly suggested science curriculum, it is critical that instructors are guided on how to accurately administer climate change material in the classroom and to enlighten young learners about the sensitive topic of global warming. Danielle Cranmer, the previously mentioned author of 5 Pro Tips for Talking to Kids About Climate Change (Without Freaking Them Out), mentions that, although it is extremely important for teachers and parents to be cautious while exposing young children to the harsh realities of human existence, it is dangerous to be too cautious. The good news Cranmer claims is that there is a “sunny approach to climate doom” and multiple ways to ease a child’s mind into addressing the severe realities of human presence on Earth (Cranmer).  Cranmer suggests that the best ways to talk to kids about climate change is through having a positive outlook and providing reassuring encouragement. According to Cranmer, acknowledging carbon footprints with children, explain the significant role forests play in the battle against climate change, and emphasizing urgency while assuring that humans are not powerless in making a change are all important in the conversation with children at home and in the classroom (Cranmer). Taking Cranmer’s advice into consideration, it is crucial that teachers, who are newly educated on climate change, remember the age of the students to which they teach science each day. 

However, the teachers that are not leading a classroom filled with kindergarteners are responsible for an older group of students. The subject of climate change in a child’s education, a plot of land that is freshly planted and ready to grow, is flexible to any learning environment from elementary classrooms to an Advanced Placement high school science class. The students finishing up their last few years of school, either preparing to pursue a further education or enter the workforce, also play an influential part in the improvement of the Earth’s future. Yet, even though teachers may be prepared to educate older students with the correct information, if schools choose not to test the information then there is no progress made. Suzanne Goldenberg from The Guardian found that climate science is “not yet a part of the testable curriculum for many schools,” and therefore, “teachers were inclined to spend more time teaching other material that students would encounter on standardized tests” (Goldenberg). So, although it is an improvement for education systems to implement climate change as a scientific subject in classrooms, students may never fully understand the future impacts of global warming if testing administrations, such as the College Board, do not recognize the significance of educating the youth on climate change. Once climate change becomes a standardized part of scientific test requirements for older students, then the average education systems will come full circle in terms of fully educating youth and improving worldwide awareness of climate change.

 Contrasting the views of those like Randy L Bell, Danielle Cranmer and others, is the unfortunate idea that global warming is not caused by humans or is simply not happening at all. Skeptics exist in today’s society, and of course, the question of whether or not global warming is a real issue finds its way into the classroom. Conservatively, it has been noticed by the public that since President Trump took office, the United States Environmental Protection Agency has recently removed “dozens of online resources dedicated to helping local governments address climate change” in order to “play down the threat of global warming” (Friedman). This agency’s most important job is to “provide scientific and technical expertise so local officials could write appropriate policies”, therefore it is alarming to see the Trump Administration performed a planned shutdown of the nation’s most valuable environmental resources (Friedman). Not only were these documents beneficial for state governments trying to improve the environment within their own communities, but they also helped educate the general public. In addition to the non-believers, are people like Gregg Easterbrook, a published sports journalist, who claims that “climate change could bring different regions of the world tremendous benefits” and sees that people might “get along in a warming world” (Easterbrook). Despite the 97% scientific consensus on the reality of climate change, the leftover 3% of scientist who disagree have powerfully discouraging voices (Foley). This 3% of highly educated scientists, who agree with the climate change claims of a sports journalist, have published multiple scientific journals in attempts to prove that global warming is not real, not harmful, or not caused by humans. Fortunately, it has been found that the scientific journals within the 3%, contain biased and “cherry-picked” evidence in the way that each scientist would “step farther and farther away from data until the points matched the curve of their choosing” (Foley). Yet, their work is published, where it is dangerously available to the public eye and easily swayable mind. Educators are approached with a serious obstacle when the controversial topic of climate change comes up in discussion. Due to the fact that there is a lack of support from influential leaders in the government and harsh disproval from a possible handful of nonbelieving parents in each school district, it has grown to be seemingly impossible for education systems to teach future generations about how their lives affect the world around them. But, the ignorance that resides in some adults now must be overcome if there is any hope in seeing education systems begin to include climate change in science curriculums and an overall brighter future for the environment. Gina McCarthy, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator under the Obama Administration, said “There is no more significant threat than climate change and it isn’t just happening to people in far-off countries — it’s happening to us,” and there are no better words for schools to live by than those when it comes to climate change education (Friedman). 

Tumbling towards a future where climate change threatens the livelihood and survival of unborn children, modern civilization is forced to ask themselves how the current state of this planet became so unacceptable. Educating children about the effects their lives have on trees outside their classroom windows and about the responsibilities in which it takes to care for their Earth is vital if these same children wish to see a healthy planet by the time they are adults. Accurate and complete education for both teachers and students will help people today address the effects they have on the progression of climate changes, assist in the understanding of the future impacts of global warming, and encourage an increased worldwide awareness to climate change related trends. Empowering the children of today, the true agents of change, will alter the outcomes of tomorrow. Now if you gave the humans a planet, but also provided them with valuable tools and fundamental knowledge about their effect on climate changes, then you can be sure that humans will do everything in their power to coexist as their planet thrives. 
