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Design Principles

Many youth are deeply concerned about climate change, with some experiencing high levels of anxiety or hopelessness about their lives and futures. This makes climate change education unlike most other science topics taught in schools. Educators must not only help students to develop robust scientific understandings of climate change, but also help students develop agency to use this knowledge to make changes in their lives and communities.

We designed the Climate Education Pathways program to help students feel like they have the ability to address climate change. This approach supports students' Environmental Science Agency (Ballard et al., 2017; Basu et al., 2009), which involves three interconnected dimensions:

 

  1. Understanding of environmental science concepts and practices

  2. Taking on scientific and social roles and developing science identities

  3. Using disciplinary understanding and expertise as a foundation to create change in one's life and community.​

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All the materials are designed with these purposes in mind and using the following principles:

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  • Using adaptable phenomena to connect scientific inquiry with students’ lives

  • Cultivating expertise among students

  • Positioning students for purposeful action

Student Perspectives on Science Learning that Matters.

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Watch this video to hear from six students about their experiences in a Climate Education Pathways unit. These students live in different communities across the country. They share how their growing knowledge of local climate issues provide a foundation for taking action and creating change in their communities.

​Learn more about Environmental Science Agency (ESA) and the principles guiding the design of Climate Education Pathways here.

 

References

Ballard, H. L., Dixon, C. G., & Harris, E. M. (2017). Youth-focused citizen science: Examining the role of environmental science learning and agency for conservation. Biological Conservation, 208, 65-75.

 

Basu, S. J., Calabrese Barton, A., Clairmont, N., & Locke, D. (2009). Developing a framework for critical science agency through case study in a conceptual physics context. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 4, 345-371.

Copyright © 2025 BSCS Science Learning. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).

The development of this material was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DRL 2100808. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

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