Kathryn Stevenson and the NC State Environmental Education Lab developed a curriculum about climate change for children that helps transcend political divides. She writes about the curriculum, and how they looked at how children responded, and how adults responded to the children. She writes “Children seem to understand that adults have caused climate problems that kids will have to deal with. However, the children are also doing what they can to motivate action.”
In 2012, she and colleagues collaborated with the State Climate Office and the Wildlife Resources Commission to develop a curriculum about climate change and wildlife. Now they added 2 other components: a service learning component that got kids into their communities, and they asked children to share what they were learning with their parents.
There were three major takeaways from her work:
1. Children seem better than adults at separating climate change from its political context.
2. When children learn about climate, they want to do something about it.
3. Children can foster climate change concern among their parents, transcending political divides.
When they studied the response of children and parents after the curriculum, they found that climate change concern grew among both children and parents, and it was especially impactful at helping transcend political divides.
The best thing is, the climate change curriculum is available to teachers to adapt to their community. There is also an example of how someone adapted the curriculum to their community in Illinois.
This is really encouraging and useful news! Parents and educators will both be interested in this curriculum.
