Overview
Developing solutions to the climate crisis is a priority, but even the Biden climate-action plan is missing one key innovation - Education.
New research shows that high-quality climate change education can be as effective in reducing carbon emissions as other solutions such as rooftop solar or electric vehicles. Access this research here and how Green Ninja has leveraged this work into creating our middle school science program.
The role of climate change education on individual lifetime carbon emissions
Education is often mentioned as an essential element in responding to climate change, but all too often, education is missing from local or national climate actions plans. One reason for this is that education is hard to quantity in tangible units that are familiar to policymakers, such as tons of CO2 or BTUs. The work done within this research group attempts to quantify and explore further the role that education can play on environmental quality including carbon emissions and air quality. If methodologies can be developed to measure environmental impact of education, then we can quantify the impact of different programs and methods.
High quality climate change education can be as effective in reducing carbon emissions as other solutions such as rooftop solar and electric vehicles. Citation: Cordero EC, Centeno D, Todd AM (2020) The role of climate change education on individual lifetime carbon emissions. PLoS ONE 15(2): e0206266. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0206266
Middle School Science Curriculum
With climate change accelerating and society making little progress in reducing carbon emissions, our team decided to focus our efforts on mitigating climate change through youth education. Green Ninja started as an applied research program that included videos, games and educational experiences focused on youth leadership and action on climate change. Through extensive testing and revision with K-12 teachers and educators, the research team developed a model for how to engage learners in authentic experiences that promote leadership and action on climate change. The model showed promise in our early studies, but we also realized that practically, if we wanted to offer these materials systemically throughout a school district we would need to develop a comprehensive science program that is taught every day, not as a supplemental program. In 2018, Green Ninja became a state-approved science provider for middle grades in California and more recently, our curriculum has been adopted by districts in California and in other states.
The learning experience is based on the above research and the learning framework is described here. Practically this NGSS program provides teachers with a comprehensive science program that uses environmental solutions as a lens for teaching science.
We welcome teachers to pilot a unit in their classrooms. Sign up for a guest account to receive access to the first unit of each of our grades (6-8).
