High school students, frustrated by lack of climate education, press for change
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Several dozen young people wearing light blue T-shirts imprinted with #teachclimate filled a hearing room in the Minnesota Capitol in St. Paul in late February. It was a cold and windy day, in contrast to the state’s nearly snowless, warm winter.
The high school and college students and other advocates, part of group Climate Generation, called on the Minnesota Youth Council, a liaison between young people and state lawmakers, to support a bill requiring schools to teach more about climate change.
Ethan Vue, who grew up with droughts and extreme temperatures in California, now lives in Minnesota and is a high school senior pushing for the bill.
“I just remember seeing my classmates always sweating, and they’d even drench themselves in water from the water fountains,” Mr. Vue said, noting climate change is making heat waves longer and hotter, but they didn’t learn about that in school.
“The topic is brushed on. If anything, we just learn about, there’s global warming, the planet’s warming up.”
In places that teach to standards formulated by the National Science Teachers Association, state governments and other organizations, many kids learn about air quality, ecosystems, biodiversity and land and water in Earth and environmental science classes.
But students and advocates say that is insufficient. They are demanding districts, boards and state lawmakers require more teaching about the planet’s warming and would like it woven into more subjects.
“Someone could theoretically go through middle school and high school without really ever acknowledging the climate crisis,” said Jacob Friedman, a high school senior in Florida who hasn’t learned about climate except for in elective classes. “Or even acknowledging that there is an issue of global warming.”
That’s bizarre to Mr. Friedman, who experienced firsthand when Hurricane Ian closed nearby schools and submerged homes in 2022.
A study found that climate change added at least 10% more rain to Hurricane Ian. Experts also say hurricanes are intensifying faster because of the extra greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. “What an unfair reality to have a young person graduate from high school,” said Leah Qusba, executive director of nonprofit Action for the Climate Emergency, “without knowing about the biggest existential threat that they’re going to face in their lifetime.”
Some places are adding more instruction. In 2020, New Jersey required teaching climate change at all grade levels. Connecticut followed, then California.
Where some proposals require teaching the basic science and human causes of climate change, the Minnesota bill goes further, requiring state officials to guide schools on teaching climate justice, including the idea that the changes hit disadvantaged communities harder.
Some legislators say they’ve heard from school administrators who say that goes too far.
“What was said to me is: ‘Why are we pushing a political perspective, a political agenda?’ ” Minnesota Rep. Ben Bakeberg, a Republican, said during a House Education Policy Committee hearing in March 2023. “That’s a reality.”
The bill didn’t advance in the 2023 session. Now it hasn’t this year either. Supporters say they will try again next year.