THE NEED FOR CLIMATE CHANGE EDUCATION IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS BY: JAMES FREDRICKS, PHD
Most would agree that today’s youth represent our future. Their future decisions, whether as policy makers, company executives, or as private citizens, will in some way affect the world and the environment that we live in. Acting now can impact future climate change and its effects on the environment. It is my hope that future decisions will be made based on scientific facts and an understanding of the complexity of the many issues associated with climate change. Climate-change education needs to start early in life. Climate change should become an important part of what youth are taught in school since it is a major problem that will be around for some time to come. We cannot leave it up to news reports on television or social media to educate society about climate change. The question is how and where to begin, especially for youth. Fortunately, recent changes in the subject matter taught in school science classes in South Carolina has created an opportunity to teach youth about what climate change is, how it alters our ecosystems, and what can be done to lessen the effects it will have. The South Carolina Department of Education revised in 2021 the science teaching standards outlining the subject matters that teachers are expected to teach in the classroom and what the students are expected to learn within these subjects. Teaching these new subject matters was delayed until the 2023/2024 academic school year due to COVID and the disruption of classroom education it caused. The subject matters taught in science each year have been and will continue to be grade-specific because of the number and range of science areas that need to be covered over the course of a student’s education. Teachers are expected to stick to the subject matters of the standards for their grades and generally have little time for topics not outlined in the standards. Because different topics are emphasized in different grades, some grades offer a greater opportunity to incorporate instruction on climate change than others. Overall, the new science standards offer more opportunities to discuss topics related to climate change than the previous science standards did.
34 E. J. TODAY
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