Teachers, states step up to keep climate change education alive as federal government funding
Andreas Schleicher, who is in charge of PISA in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, told me that the test is designed to promote student agency awareness. He said this will be based in part on materials long covered in schools in countries such as Japan and Canada.
Meanwhile, returning home in the United States, science educators are circulating climate literacy guidelines as “Samizdat,” a term for self-published books in the former Soviet Union. Colorado cites guidelines for updating state scientific standards that are currently under review. The University of Washington has added a new page that contains a copy of the guide, called the STEM teaching tool, which can accommodate between 10,000 and 15,000 visitors per month.
Deb Morrison, an education consultant working on the resources for STEM teaching tools, said they were eager to release it in time at the National Science Education Conference in Philadelphia in March, where they held more than a dozen courses on topics from science teachers across the country.
“I would say educators in every state are teaching climate,” she said. “Managing tensions that exist in different places and being able to meet people they are, but they are still teaching climate in Florida, Maine, Mississippi, Oregon, Alabama.”
That being said, Morrison said removing the guide from its dot.gov field, not to mention removing the basic government data collection on climate, posed a challenge not only to scientific knowledge, but also to equity, justice and democracy.
“Now, we are voting based on opinions or faked in different spaces, and no one actually learns and uses evidence.”
For Schleicher, improving climate literacy through PISA is a key part of a wider project, aiming to promote scientific knowledge as a cornerstone of international cooperation. In this world, you can find the entire YouTube channel that specifically describes the claim that the Earth is flat, saying, “Science actually builds consensus among people between people based on objective evidence-based reality.” Without these, it is hard to imagine a peaceful or prosperous future for anyone.
Note: This is my final climate and education column with the support of the Aspen Institute. I have been contributing to this series since 2022 and through workforce development, traditional and indigenous knowledge, climate storytelling in children’s media and more. It’s a kind of honor you can get in Hechinger, Grist and mine Weekly newsletter. You can also sign up for Hechinger’s climate change and education newsletter here.
Please contact editor Caroline Preston preston@hechingerreport.orgon the signal of Carolinep.83 or 212-870-8965.
