By ALEXA ST. JOHN and DOUG GLASS (Associated Press)
ST. PAUL, Minn. — A group of young people wearing light blue T-shirts with #teachclimate gathered at the Minnesota Capitol in St. Paul in late February. It was a cold and windy day, in contrast to the state’s nearly snowless, warm winter.
The students and advocates, part of group Climate Generation, urged the Minnesota Youth Council to support a bill requiring schools to teach more about climate change.
Ethan Vue, who experienced droughts and extreme temperatures in California before moving to Minnesota, is a high school senior advocating for the bill.
“I just remember seeing my classmates always sweating, and they’d even drench themselves in water from the water fountains,” Vue said in a phone interview, noting climate change is making heat waves longer and hotter, but they didn’t learn about that in school.
“The topic is briefly mentioned. If anything, we just learn about, there’s global warming, the planet’s warming up.”
In places that follow standards set by the National Science Teachers Association, state governments and other organizations, many kids learn about air quality, ecosystems, biodiversity and land and water in Earth and environmental science classes.
But students and advocates say that is not enough. They are urging districts, boards and state lawmakers to mandate more teaching about the planet’s warming and to integrate it into more subjects.
Some states and school districts have moved have moved in the opposite direction. In Texas, the board of education rejected books with climate information. In Florida, school materials reject climate change.
“Someone could potentially go through middle school and high school without really ever acknowledging the climate crisis,” said Jacob Friedman, a high school senior in Florida who hasn’t studied climate except in elective classes. “Or even acknowledging that there is an issue of global warming.”
That’s strange to Friedman, who experienced the impact when Hurricane Ian closed nearby schools and submerged homes in 2022.
A study conducted after the storm found that climate change added at least 10% more rain to Hurricane Ian. Experts also say hurricanes are intensifying faster because of the extra greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that are collecting heat and warming the oceans.
“What an unfair reality to have a young person graduate from high school,” said Leah Qusba, executive director of nonprofit Action for the Climate Emergency, “without knowing about the biggest existential threat that they’re going to face in their lifetime.”
Some some places are increasing their instruction on the subject. In 2020, New Jersey required teaching climate change at all grade levels. Connecticut followed, then California. More than two dozen new measures across 10 states were introduced last year, according to the National Center for Science Education.
Where some proposals require teaching the basic science and human causes of global warming, the Minnesota bill goes even further, making it necessary for state officials to assist schools in teaching climate justice, including the concept that the changes affect disadvantaged communities more severely. have a greater impact on disadvantaged communities.
Some lawmakers claim they’ve been contacted by school administrators and teachers who believe that requirement is excessive.
“I was told: ‘Why are we promoting a political viewpoint, a political agenda?’” Minnesota Rep. Ben Bakeberg, a Republican, stated during a House Education Policy Committee hearing in March 2023. “That’s the truth.”
The bill didn’t progress in the 2023 session. Now it hasn’t this year either. Advocates say they will attempt again next year.
Acknowledging such opposition, some students interested in climate choose to advocate at their schools rather than through the legislative process.
Three years ago, floods destroyed Ariela Lara’s mom’s village in Oaxaca, Mexico, while they were visiting. Then Lara came home to California and was affected by smoke-filled skies caused by wildfires that forced thousands to evacuate or stay indoors for weeks.
Despite what she observed, Lara felt that in school she was only taught about recycling and carbon footprints, a measure of a person’s personal greenhouse gas emissions.
So she went to the board of education.
“I had to really think about how I could approach the people in power to really change the curriculum we were learning,” Lara said. “It would become so tiresome because for me, I was the one that was really trying to enforce it.”
By the time her school offered Advanced Placement Environmental Science, Lara was too senior to enroll in it. AP Enviro does discuss global warming, according to the College Board, but it’s also more comprehensive.
When targeted efforts are ineffective, some students feel they’re on their own.
For high school junior Siyeon Joo, climate education seems like a no-brainer where she lives in Lafayette, Louisiana, which was hit hard by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and has been affected by several other intense storms and heat waves.
But Joo wasn’t exposed to climate change at her public middle school and an educator there once told her it wasn’t real.
“I remember sitting in that classroom,” the now-16-year-old said, “being really angry that that was the system that was being forced upon me at the time.”
It took enrolling in a private school for Joo to learn about these topics. Many students don’t have that option.
Experts say climate content could be integrated into lessons without overburdening schools or placing the responsibility on students. But much like with legislation, that will take time students say they don’t have.
“I was part of these communities that were really just affirming how much is at stake if we don’t take action,” said Lara, the student in California, recalling how important to her it would have been to receive education about her experiences. “You should be able to go to school and learn about the gravity which the climate crisis is at.”
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Alexa St. John reported from Detroit and Doug Glass reported from St. Paul, Minn.
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Alexa St. John is an Associated Press climate solutions reporter. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, @alexa_stjohn. Contact her at [email protected].
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The Associated Press’ reporting on climate and the environment is supported financially by various private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for collaborating with charitable organizations, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
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