Climate Science and Climate Change Across the Curricula – Seizing Opportunities

Challenges abound as our Earth warms, seas rise, and weather extremes become more and more common. Solutions to these challenges requires the collective knowledge of many along with transdisciplinary approaches, resulting in unique, creative, and comprehensive solutions.  In addition, these challenges come in many spatial and temporal sizes, and therefore solutions are needed at local, regional, global levels organized by small scale and larger scale groups. School systems can be a hub of ingenuity when it comes to designing and implementing solutions if guided by a clear pathway. Some states in the United States of America have adopted standards for learning that include climate science and climate change across all subject areas. In these states the vision for standards implementation parallels a vision for meeting the local and regional challenges of climate change. This presentation will outline the new roles afforded schools in our collective effort to reverse climate change and reduce its impact along the way.