Climate Change Education and State Standards

Keywords: climate change, geography education, social studies
Session Type: Virtual Poster Abstract
Day: Friday
Session Start / End Time: 2/25/2022 03:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/25/2022 05:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 73

Abstract

Climate change impacts across the United States were unprecedented in 2021. Texas experienced a devastating freeze, California again suffered massive wildfires, and Seattle had a three day stretch of 100 plus degree heat. Education in K12 can address the causes, impacts and solutions to climate change. The purpose of this study is to measure the distribution of climate change education in the U.S. We looked for entries of climate change in the 50 state education standards in both social studies and science curricula. Regarding social studies, we found that only two states (MI and NJ) mentioned climate change in their standards six or more times. There were 16 states that mentioned climate change one to five times in their standards, and 32 states had no mention of climate change. We found no clear geographic pattern, although there was some clustering. There was little linkage between the mention of climate change and political leaning. Many traditionally blue states made no mention of it (CA, NY, and WA) while some traditionally red states mentioned it (AL, OK, and SD). States with significant petroleum and coal industries made no mention of climate change at all (KY, LA, TX and WV). Regarding science standards, 20 states had adopted the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) or had revised their curricula to loosely align with them. Climate change is a core component of the NGSS. Nine of these 20 states also featured climate change in their social studies standards.