Teaching Climate Science as the World Burns:

Understanding How Education Policy and Political Beliefs Influence Climate Pedagogies

The way students learn to think and feel about climate science will, for generations to come, determine how we as a species respond to the climate threat – making teachers a critical linchpin in the fight against climate change. However, given the rightward drift of education policy, teachers face a host of challenges when teaching about climate change that are not well understood, especially in the current political landscape. Through interviews and survey data with teachers in two politically conservative regions, this study will (1) build knowledge about the multiplicity of ways teachers think and teach about climate change – particularly as they navigate shifting education policies, (2) provide an evidence-base to educators, researchers, and policymakers seeking solutions to a changing climate via education initiatives, and (3) serve as a starting point for a larger longitudinal study to understand if/how these teachers’ climate thinking and pedagogy changes over time.

Research questions

Considering that K-12 science teachers in these districts should be teaching about climate change, this study asks:

1. In these contexts, what are science teachers’ beliefs and attitudes about climate change?
2. When teaching about climate change, what do they cover and what does their pedagogy look like?
3. What constraints or supports are they experiencing when teaching about climate change?
4. How do they think their students are feeling about climate change? Do they feel like they are sporting their students’ beyond intellectual understandings of climate change?