Climate Education Pathways
Our Vision
We envision a world where everyone is prepared and motivated to tackle climate change together. It starts in science class, where we help students figure out that climate change is a problem affecting our communities and they can be part of the solution. We want all students to develop a robust understanding of science so they can contribute to meaningful changes in our shared society.
Climate Education Pathways is a development and research project making this vision come true. Our approach is to partner with teachers to localize climate learning. We do this by providing teachers with quality curriculum as a starting point for teacher design and creativity.
We invite you to explore our teacher-created and tested resources to be a part of the vision, too.
For years I’ve been trying to develop a really strong curriculum that addresses climate change. I want it to be a curriculum that kids feel they understand and can be part of the solution. I want it to be something they don’t feel threatened by. I want them to be engaged because they feel like it's something that’s going to impact their lives and that they can help solve. As a teacher, I strive to build relevance into what I teach.
~ Brian Vollmer-Buhl
Learn more about the goals of the project and the instructional approach of our resources.
Get to know the base unit materials and example localized Climate Education Pathways.
Access tools to plan your own localized Climate Education Pathway and videos of the program in action.​
How the curriculumn was developed
The Climate Education Pathways project, funded by the National Science Foundation (DRL2100808), developed and studied an innovative approach to teaching climate change in high school science classrooms that combines locally-relevant phenomena and solutions with global climate science.
2021-2022 Design and Pilot: The Climate Education Pathways curriculum was initially developed through an iterative design process that began with 5 teacher co-designers from across the country who provided input on the base unit, created local example pathways, and piloted the materials. After this pilot phase, we refined the base unit and fully developed the 5 example local pathways to serve as models for other educators.
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2022-2024 Cohort-Controlled Quasi-experimental Study: We then conducted a study with 25 teachers and over 2,000 students nationwide. Teachers first taught climate change using their typical approach in the 2022-23 school year. They then received 60 hours of professional learning to design their local pathways before implementing their localized units in 2023-2024.
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Results: Our research showed that students experiencing the localized curriculum showed significant improvements in climate science knowledge (effect size of 0.251, equivalent to a 10-percentage point gain on the What Works Clearinghouse Improvement Index) and in carrying this knowledge into their lives outside of school (effect size of 0.148, representing a 5-percentage point improvement on the What Works Clearinghouse Improvement Index). Teachers demonstrated significant growth in their confidence to design and facilitate units for the NGSS, confidence teaching climate change, confidence tapping into relevance and localization, and their own climate science content knowledge.
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Meet the development and research team or read more research reports and presentations.