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A New Lens for Climate Change Education
Mitigating the effects of global climate change is critical for all of earth’s inhabitants. While Americans disagree on many issues, they overwhelmingly support educating youth about climate change. According to a 2018 report from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, an average of 78 percent of Americans—across all 50 states and more than 3,000 counties—want schools to teach children about the causes and consequences of global warming and potential solutions for it. Lowell is doing just that and leading the way with a yearlong course designed to look at climate change through the lens of the humanities.
Climate Change Education Now
The facts of climate science are well established, and most climate change education is delivered through science instruction. Even so, the Next Generation Science Standards, developed by the National Science Teachers Association, include only one standard directly addressing human-caused climate change for middle school students and two for high school students.
Lowell takes climate change education much further. In Primary School, students begin learning about climate in 2nd grade science class when they study rocks and the Earth’s surfaces and discuss why it is possible to find whale fossils on the top of mountains. In 3rd grade they explore the difference between weather and climate, and in 4th grade they are introduced to the idea of humancaused climate change. When they circle back to climate in 6th grade science, they analyze the data showing the effect of climate change on Earth’s oceans and atmosphere and consider the ways that science and engineering can contribute to our understanding of climate change.
But 6th graders learn more than the science. Their yearlong humanities class focuses on the social dimensions of climate change. Through the core disciplines of the humanities—history, geography, economics, literature, and government—students learn about the complex social effects of climate change, how humans contributed to the problem, and the ways that people are addressing those problems within local, national, and international contexts. At the same time, students develop vital core skills such as accessing, comparing, and evaluating sources; writing in narrative, expository, and persuasive formats; conducting research projects; and analyzing data.
Sixth grade Humanities Teacher Dave Levy notes, “It’s important to make an issue such as climate change solution-based.” So, service-learning and civic engagement opportunities—like meeting the people of Tangier Island, collaborating on an oyster restoration project, and delivering bi-partisan climate action resolutions to members of Congress—channel students’ knowledge and skills into meaningful, constructive steps. Such opportunities counter some of the negative emotions associated with climate change and empower students to make a difference in the world.
Lowell students have shown enthusiasm for the course, and parents have been supportive of the curriculum. According to Director of Middle School Kavan Yee, parents notice how engaged their children are in the topic and how much they bring home to share. “Some [students] have even helped their own families change their lifestyles or become more active in marches and demonstrations,” he says.
The 6th grade’s in-depth investigation of climate change from a humanities perspective is a first-of-its-kind program. Now in its second year, the curriculum was originally developed by a team of teachers at Lowell led by Humanities Coordinator Natalie Stapert. The teachers partnered with parents, representatives from Climate Generation: A Will Steger Legacy, and Frank Niepold, senior climate education program manager at NOAA. All of the partners recognized the importance of looking at climate change through the lens of humanities and continue to provide an important network for collaboration.
Measuring Outcomes
Laney Siegner, a PhD candidate in the Energy and Resources Group at UC Berkeley, has also been following Lowell’s work. Deeply committed to climate change education, Laney contends, “We need education to create the norms for young people. This is how we create a sustainable world. … If adults aren’t listening closely enough or willing to change, then kids are our best hope because they are learning and changing every day.”
As climate change education is still in its nascent state in the US, and literature connecting theory and practice is scant, Laney was eager to study the effect of Lowell’s 6th grade curriculum and reached out to partner with Natalie on a study of course outcomes.
Their study was based on quantitative and qualitative data collected from student surveys, faculty interviews, and classroom observations. Their paper highlighting the results will be published by the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Education Research. Several key findings indicate success in the first year of the curriculum:
#1 According to survey results, Lowell middle schoolers demonstrated higher levels of knowledge and engagement around climate change than the average American teenager or adult.
#2 Sixth graders performed equal to or above the 8th graders on most climate knowledge and engagement questions. This outcome was surprising given the significant cognitive and social development that occurs between 6th and 8th grade.
#3 Sixth graders had the highest response rates on engagement questions that asked how often they researched climate change and talked to friends and family about it in the past year. This is significant since the 6th graders were the only Middle School class to study climate change through the lens of social studies and language arts. It also demonstrates the ripple effects of climate change education. Students’ engagement doesn’t end when they leave the classroom, and they aren’t the only ones learning from the curriculum. “There is intergenerational transfer and learning,” Laney notes.
#4 The staff interviews uncovered another potentially important piece of information related to outcomes. In reviewing the school’s internal standardized testing results, Kavan noticed significant improvement in the 6th graders’ reading comprehension scores, almost two standard deviations from their scores the previous year. This dramatic increase can’t be wholly attributed to the new curriculum without more data, but Kavan’s observations of enthusiastic student engagement with the nonfiction texts suggest a strong link.
Lowell’s course has clearly had a positive effect on our students and our school community, but it has the potential to do even more. Laney and Natalie are eager to share the results of their study and fuel a larger conversation around climate education in schools. Natalie has begun to present work nationally at conferences of the North American Association for Environmental Education and the National Council for the Social Studies.
Partnerships for Greater Impact
When schools partner with non-governmental organizations, academia, and government—as Lowell is doing—there is a greater chance to advance effective climate education for all. Laney explains that the power of partnerships is in creating programs that are capable of being replicated and scaled, and each partner contributes something important to that end. Head of School Debbie Gibbs describes Lowell’s contribution of curriculum and teacher training as an example of the school’s “public purpose.”
Recently, Climate Generation published two of Natalie’s humanities modules, which are based on A Long Walk to Water and The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. And, in August Lowell will host 30–60 teachers from all over the country for Climate Generation’s Summer Institute for Climate Change Education. Natalie has been helping to plan the Institute, and she is excited to be on the faculty to share her know-how with teachers committed to furthering climate change education. She also plans to continue working with Laney to track the outcomes of Lowell’s curriculum and to deepen connections with two new partners, Mobile Climate Science Labs and Schools 4 Climate Action.
Student Voice
In April, Ethan Vandivier ’21 presented a climate action resolution to Lowell’s Student Government Association, and it was approved unanimously. In passing the resolution, Lowell students joined others from around the country who are urging lawmakers to take quick, bold action to address climate change. The initiative is organized by S4CA, a nonpartisan youth-adult campaign empowering students and schools to speak up for climate action. Ethan has also been advocating for solar panels on Lowell’s campus, and he was recently invited to join the Youth Advisory Board for Young Voices of the Planet.
Ethan has been working on and learning about climate change for some time. When asked about his advocacy, Ethan pointed out, “This is my future.” He says that the 6th grade climate change curriculum has brought a new level of awareness to students in the middle school: “I’m not alone anymore. People know what’s going on and are ready to make change. I think all schools should be doing this.”
