You need to integrate it across the curriculum!
Editorial team
It’s amazing how many of our local schools do so little to help students understand and prepare for global warming and the climate emergency and to deal with other critical elements of sustainability. It’s not realistic to wait for the state to decide it’s OK.
Pennsylvania’s state Board of Education finally adopted new science standards, and we hope that this will bring real improvement, but the new standards are not adequate on climate change and sustainability—and they don’t take effect until the 2025–2026 school year.
We hope teachers and schools throughout the Lehigh Valley are doing everything they can to correct this and provide the support and tools students will need to face the coming challenges of climate change and building sustainable communities.
We talked with one teacher who’s making efforts in this direction: Greg Zahm, who teaches environmental science at Liberty High School, is exploring ways to catalyze changes in his district. As with most sustainability-related projects, Greg’s efforts in Bethlehem will require using both ‘big picture’ understanding and the ability to deal with myriad small details to overcome the challenges and barriers to change. Greg noted that different institutions each face unique barriers to changes in educational policy.
Meaningful learning about climate and sustainability demands a comprehensive, interdisciplinary approach that engages all students, not just those in science courses.
Science and facts are often ignored or denied by elected officials and the media, so it’s also essential to help students learn how to distinguish science and fact from ideology and uninformed opinion.
Greg’s goals are to help his district in four main areas, and he also indicated some of the barriers:
- plan and fully implement its 2014 Climate and Sustainability Commitment and communicate progress to the community annually. This will involve teachers, administrators, and staff;
- create an active district-wide committee on sustainability. This should be a simple decision, but its success depends on participation who have the commitment and time;
- hire or assign a person to focus on climate change and sustainability education and public outreach. This requires funding, always a problem for schools (despite their massive budgets);
- make environmental science a required course for all students (or an option to fulfill students’ science requirement). This will require active participation from teachers and administrators, and will probably take many months and should include consultation with higher education experts.
While the state doesn’t seem capable of showing the needed leadership, school districts need not wait — they can take steps now to make sure their schools provide what students need.
In its 2014 Climate and Sustainability Commitment, Bethlehem Area School District said, “School districts that proactively address [these] concerns better serve their students and their communities… they provide students with the knowledge and skills needed to address the critical, systemic challenges faced both locally and globally.”
How can we expect the new generation to build a strong future if schools do not provide the tools they will need?
This is not just about science teachers! In fact, limiting climate education to science could fail to develop the critical social, ethical, and political dimensions.
Parents and students may need to press the school board and administration, and teachers can incorporate many needed changes into their own classes. Relatively simple changes can make a real difference, and every district needs to take action to adequately serve their students.
Some school leaders may cite various barriers to change, but teachers can incorporate changes like these within existing curriculum requirements. It turns out that it isn’t as difficult as you might think!
Here are a few ideas teachers can try in various subject areas:
- English / ELA – Read and discuss books such as Braiding Sweetgrass, The Hunger Games, The New Atlantis, Two Degrees, or stories from Everything Change;
- Social Studies – Discuss climate justice and the disproportionate causes and effects of climate change in certain countries and populations, the causes and effects of political inaction, and poor coverage in the mainstream corporate media; examine the results when companies can push costs onto the government and taxpayers. (Common examples of such ‘externalities’ are polluting air, soil, and water or creating products that endanger our health.);
- Math and Engineering – Explore ways to measure, mitigate, and adapt to global warming effects such as sea-level rise in;
Science (Biology, Chemistry, Environmental Science, and Physics) – Explore and analyze climate-change causes such as burning fossil fuels, wasting energy, and food production and waste; examine impacts such as loss of glaciers and ice sheets, massive wildfires, desertification, extreme weather events, and species extinction;
We hope that teachers throughout the Lehigh Valley will integrate changes along these lines into their classrooms! (For additional ideas, please see the Alliance’s Teaching Climate website.)
The most ambitious goal that Greg outlined may be full implementation of the district’s 2014 Climate and Sustainability Commitment, since this could involve many interdependent components.
Here are a few examples:
- waste minimization and recycling, (staff and students need to know why reducing waste is so important and how to do it effectively in their school);
- eliminate school bus idling and providing course content looking at the health impacts of pollution;
- develop and phase in standards for sustainable food purchasing and preparation.
- develop a food-waste composting program for the very large volume of organic food waste produced daily.
- explore the benefits of a school garden and composting, and provide course content looking at the food system’s critical role in climate change, health, and waste; (see the Alliance’s 2023 Keys to a Strong School Wellness Policy)
- increase opportunities for experiential learning and field trips;
- review career pathways in light of 21st-century opportunities (such as design & installation of alternative energy systems, designing carbon-neutral buildings, planning for organizational sustainability, and sustainability coordination and management);
- find ways to incorporate climate and sustainability across the curriculum at all grade levels
Greg pointed to Portland, Oregon, as what may be the best example of what can be done to address climate and sustainability comprehensively—in their operations, curriculum, and community engagement.
The Portland Public Schools have committed to a comprehensive approach to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, minimizing other negative environmental impacts, improving the health and wellness of school communities, and building a culture of learning, responsibility, and sustainability, centered on racial equity and climate justice. In addition, they are reviewing all current textbooks for accuracy about the climate crisis and “will abandon the use of any adopted text material that is found to express doubt about the severity of the climate crisis or its root in human activities.”
One critical element, Greg says, is to involve all stakeholders, including teachers, students, administrators, staff, parents, union leaders, and community members.
Greg is currently inviting community partners to join his efforts to build a strong Bethlehem climate justice project and hopes it can help spur other school districts. His passion for these topics arose, he explained, from growing up in the Lehigh Valley and seeing development destroy a lot of natural areas that he had enjoyed. He is now on sabbatical working on his Master’s in Environmental Science, but he continues to work with students and potential partners to keep things moving forward; he plans go on to a doctorate focusing on educational policy.
It’s way past time for schools to include full coverage on climate and sustainability! Parents and students need to insist that your district provide comprehensive experiential and classroom-based education across the curriculum at all levels.
State Standards
In 2020, New Jersey adopted new standards requiring climate issues to be taught across the K-12 curriculum at all levels. In 2023, they set aside $4.5 million for grants for educators to develop effective education lessons on climate change.
In 2022, Connecticut adopted standards requiring all its K-12 schools to teach about climate change.
So far, NJ and CT are the only two states that require all schools to teach climate change.
PA’s new science standards don’t go into effect until the 2025–2026 school year.
Several people helped create this article, including Angie Bravo (Lehigh ‘24). editorial intern Ericka Nimbley (Lafayette ‘26), community member Sarah Mengel (Kutztown ‘23), and editor Peter Crownfield.
Leave a Reply