Crystal: I’m Crystal DiMiceli, and welcome to the Forces for Nature show.

Do you find yourself overwhelmed with all the doom and gloom you hear of these days? Do you feel like you, as just one person, can’t really make a difference? Forces for Nature cuts through that negativity. In each episode, I interview somebody who is doing great things for animals and the environment. We talk about the challenge they’re addressing, the solution they have found.

We’ll keep some going and we’ll leave you with practical action tips so that you too can become a force for nature Have you heard of the quote by Baba Dio? I might have butchered the name, but we will conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught.

Ever since I worked for the Smithsonian, creating a new environmental education program for them in Panama, I have remembered this quote. And it’s why I was so excited to learn that the state of New Jersey is the first to mandate that climate change be taught across all subjects from kindergarten through 12th grade.

This is so necessary. Today’s guest, the First Lady of New Jersey, Mrs. Tammy Murphy, spearheaded this effort. Funny side story, I was keen to have her on the show, but the only contact that I could find was the contact form of the state government website. You know, the one you assume sends your message to the outer reaches of the universe never to actually be seen by a human being?

But it was seen and it was forwarded to her team and she’s here with me today. And I couldn’t be more grateful. The overwhelm that so many feel in the face of this giant issue can be so much less when we’re taught about how and why it’s happening and even better, what solutions we have to fix it.

Ms. Murphy, thank you so much for joining me on Forces for Nature. It’s so great to have

Mrs. Murphy: you. Thank you for having me, Crystal. And, you know, I’m really looking forward to sharing some of what we’re doing with others. So thank

Crystal: you. Yeah, I’m super excited to, for, for those who know me, environmental education is at the heart of what I do and means a lot to me.

So I’m really excited to talk about what’s happening in New Jersey. But let’s start. with just a general overview of climate change education in the U. S. What is the status of that right now?

Mrs. Murphy: Well, we are certainly the first state in the United States that is mandating climate change education across all standards of the core curriculum.

I would say that in the across the country, there are some states that have mandated climate education, but in science class only so that I think that that would be the U. S. The easiest way to differentiate what we’re doing from that, which others are, are handling right now.

Crystal: And why is it so important to incorporate climate change into our curriculum in the first place?

And why not just keep it to science classes?

Mrs. Murphy: Well, I can’t speak for you, but I know that I personally am a very. Visual learner and people learn in different ways. So some may be auditory, some may be visual, some may be physical. So being able to explain and communicate climate change across all standards enables all children to be exposed to.

the education in different ways. It also, from my vantage point, and I suspect Crystal, you will agree with me on this, I believe that climate change is going to impact every aspect of life as we move forward. And so whether you are a reporter or an architect or an engineer or a scientist or an artist, I mean, everyone is going to need to understand what the implications are of climate change in order to properly communicate and find good responses for the future.

And also, from my vantage point, there are going to be incredible jobs in the green economy as we move forward, and there’s a real opportunity to lead in various ways. So the better we can educate our students and the more prepared they are to lean in on and understand the concepts and You know how things are interrelated then the more effective they will be in the future in leading across multiple workforce opportunities Absolutely.

Crystal: And I believe it’s not just the green economy, like in any role that you take on, you’ll be able to use your passion to make the world a better place in one way or another. So whether you go into fashion or, you know, any, anything there, there are ways to, I agree. I mean,

Mrs. Murphy: it’s transportation, it’s housing, it literally is going to touch every aspect of our lives.

The clothes we wear, the food we eat, I mean, it’s, it will impact us all. And so. The more knowledge, the better off.

Crystal: And what was the process like to implement climate change in the education for New

Mrs. Murphy: Jersey? Sure. Well, let me, let me backtrack for one second and just share with you that my husband, Governor Murphy, actually has put New Jersey on a path to clean energy, green economy by the year 2035.

Our view, my view is that. That’s all good and well, but we need to educate the next generation because these incredible industries are going to be growing and, and there’s going to be more opportunities. So, you know, we, we have a lot of work right now going on in offshore wind and community solar, and we’re looking at, you know, hydrogen and electric vehicles and, and battery charging.

And so because of that, and because those industries are going to be here, we are also trying to think. What can we do to partner with the next generation and make sure that they’re prepared? What did I do personally? I personally worked with my team first starting in 2018 to try and figure out How can we best influence and hope that that our educators would want to incorporate climate change?

And how can we explain the the need to do that? Then when you know every five years here in New Jersey The standards of the core curriculum are reviewed, and that basically means that the teachers will, a group of teachers, in this case, 130 teachers and educators, I shouldn’t say just teachers, but educators, came together in March of 2019 to start reviewing, uh, seven of the nine standards of the core curriculum to, to determine what our students should know about After they complete the 13 year K to 12 curriculum.

And so I went and spoke with all of the educators when they were convening and then I also went into subsequently into each of the different standards where educators were focusing on, you know, what, what should phys ed be teaching and what should, you know, social studies be teaching to actually talk to them and explain to them why I felt it was really important.

That they should include climate change in each of the standards. Good news is that, that they did agree. And so back in 2019, they voted to incorporate climate change into seven of the nine standards. And then just recently, like really just recently, the other two standards, math and English language arts were also reviewed, and we are, as of.

Now going to be teaching them across all nine standards of the curriculum. So it’s, it’s, it’s really fabulous.

Crystal: Amazing. I was going to ask you about the, the last two

Mrs. Murphy: because so they, they’re in, they’re in, they will not launch until the 2024 2025 school year. So that they are, they’re a little bit behind because the teachers obviously need time to, to figure out what their lesson plans will be and everything.

So I’m just thrilled though, that. The, the New Jersey Board of Education agreed that this is important and New Jersey should lead in this area. Mm hmm.

Crystal: And how were educators prepared for the rollout of this?

Mrs. Murphy: So, in several ways. First of all, the Department of Education has gone to each of the districts to work with the districts, the superintendents, the principals, to inquire what do you need and how can we make sure that we are answering those needs as efficiently as possible.

And then they, we have created an online toolkit. At the department of education and, and that toolkit has ample resources for teachers, for students that has, you know, it has basically resources broken down by subject matter. And by grade level, it has videos and podcasts, and it has links to.

Organizations for professional development for the teachers. It has links to advocacy organizations. So there’s a lot available and the department is constantly updating that to make sure. That, you know, if there’s new information, if there’s new material out there that we are hopefully trying to give the teachers the easiest route.

We also have just created and, and added a senior advisor to our first in the nation office of climate change education, which is located in within the department of education. And that Entire sub department or whatever you want to call it is is is really focused on. How do we implement? How do we get the teachers ready?

How do we make sure they have the resources available and it’s going to be very adaptive So it’s not going to be a stagnant office where these are the standards. This is where you go They are going to be constantly looking at Where is the green economy in New Jersey? Where is the world going? What materials can we do?

How can we better communicate? So, I’m, it’s gonna hold a lot of promise. I’m really excited about that. Very cool. Oh, I forgot one thing. Yeah? Importantly, we also rolled out some grant opportunities for all of the school districts, and I guess that was last year. We had two different offerings of grants that would enable the schools to have the materials or whatever they needed to implement climate change, um, education.

And as of the end of last year, we had over 330 districts that had signed up for these grant opportunities. That’s about half of our districts in the state. We are now analyzing. How we rolled that out last year and we’re trying to make sure it’s the most effective way and are looking forward to relaunching either in the same way or in a new way because we’re constantly Critiquing ourselves and trying to improve on anything that we’re doing so that that is another piece of this puzzle.

That’s super important Could you give an example

Crystal: of what it looks like for, let’s say, elementary school students to learn about climate change? And, and also, I mean, you mentioned, for example, physical education. Like what exactly would they be teaching and physical education, what does this look like on

Mrs. Murphy: the ground?

Yeah, so let me take physical education first. ’cause that’s, that’s the more complicated one. And the, the elementary school just makes me happy. um, phys and in phys ed. They’re, they’re explaining and teaching the children about, for example, if you’re at a school that might be, or if you’re living in an area that might be near a port or at an, at an interchange on a highway, or, um, you know, in an area that might have, might be more heavily polluted, how that will.

How that will impact your breathing, how that will impact your exercise. And so that’s just one example, but that is a very tangible example to teach people. But that, that’s one piece that the, for phys ed, for the elementary school students, I’ve had the chance to visit a lot of schools that are doing some amazing things.

And I remember my favorite thing is going to visit an elementary school where first the children were peeling off the labels off of the old crayons and separating them by color. And then they were going outside where they had created their own solar panel with some aluminum foil. And basically egg cartons, and the crayons were then melted into new shapes and forms like they were molds, like fun little animal molds.

And so the kids could either decide if they wanted to create just a yellow crayon or they wanted to put some blue in it and how the color changes and things like that. And it was just so heartwarming to see because You know, the children have no idea. They’re just learning about recycling. I mean, they’re learning so many things in that one lesson, you know, and it touches, as I said, you know, it touches art, it touches math, it touches science and it, it, it, it just really encapsulated just so many of the opportunities that are so exciting for the kids and it’s just a, yeah, so that was, that’s probably my favorite one.

Yeah.

Crystal: And students will protect what they love and, you know, through those ways I could imagine that they’re. Growing to love the environment and what they’re doing.

Mrs. Murphy: Yeah. It’s the, you know, the students are the ones who are demanding this in all honesty, the kids are aware, you know, when there is the summer, we were impacted horribly by the wildfires in Canada, as you may know from your family here in the United States.

I mean, it was horrible and to ignore that reality. And just put your head in the sand is not helping anyone because the kids are aware they know what’s going on. They know they aren’t allowed to go out and play. They know that the sky is orange and it should be blue. I mean, so I feel like that this entire effort that we have all these standards in teaching climate change.

It’s really a partnership between generations. We’re being responsive to what the students want. They want to learn this. They want to understand. And they’re going to be the best ones to figure out how we might. Prevent any further challenges in the future and how we can respond in positive ways to what we’re being handed at present.

Crystal: And last year was your first year of rolling out this curriculum. How did that

Mrs. Murphy: go? It went really well. I would tell you that I haven’t heard anyone upset. In fact, I have attended several conferences because some of our institutes of higher education I have been holding conferences for teachers in K 12 classrooms across New Jersey to help give them the opportunity to ask questions for professional development, to share studies and things that are going on, and to give them an opportunity to network.

And I have gone to a number of these convenings and spoken at them and then had the chance to talk to teachers and the teachers are overwhelmingly excited for just the reason I just said. The students want to learn about it. The teachers feel that they would like to be able to teach this, but many of them haven’t had any professional education themselves, so some of them were a little bit concerned about that upfront, but they are overwhelmingly excited about it and they’re feeling like they’re really.

moving the needle for their students. I even had one teacher tell me that a friend of hers teaches in another state in the United States and how envious their friend was that in New Jersey, you know, she gets to teach about climate change and her friend is not allowed to do that where they live. Well, so

Crystal: that, that makes me think of any potential challenges or pushbacks that you may have received.

How have you navigated those?

Mrs. Murphy: You know, I have said up front is Whether or not you believe in climate change. I can’t make you believe in climate change. I can try , but I, I, I, I, I won’t make you believe in that. But what I will share is that the green economy is coming whether you, whether you like it or not.

And if you do not prepare our students to be the leaders in the green economy, then we are really not only letting our students down. But we’re not going to have the great jobs of the future. So if you are interested in workforce development, if you’re interested in having our state lead. Then we should be teaching climate change education.

There are pieces of this, I just talked to you about recycling. There’s, there’s, there’s all sorts of elements to this education. And it’s up to the teachers themselves to decide. How they want to integrate climate change into their classroom. For example, you could have one teacher who will teach climate change once a month for the entire year.

You may have somebody else who has an actual climate change unit within their classroom. So it’s really up to the teachers. They can interpret this however they want. And that I feel really strongly about because I’m not, I’m not an educator.

Crystal: How is hope rather than fear being instilled in these students when it comes to climate change?

Because so often there is all the doom and gloom and the weight of the challenges that we’re facing.

Mrs. Murphy: I think personally that by giving the students the ability to think and to understand the cause and effect. Of climate change, we’re actually giving them the tools to be able to affect change moving forward and to think out of the box and to really, you know, not start from scratch and not just throw their hands up in the air it by way of example, the.

Elementary school children who are able to repurpose and reuse crayons to create new crayons and they can watch that happen from beginning to end and see how the sun can help them and how recycling works. There’s nothing threatening in that. That’s, I think, fun and I think it gives the children some ownership.

Every single lesson is age appropriate and that’s the most important piece. And as I said, the educators know. What is relevant and pertinent and appropriate for their students and what is not. We have the best educators in the country. We have the number one public education system in the country for three years in a row now.

So we’ve got the best of the best and they’re not going to do anything that’s going to frighten. Uh, they, they’re, that’s not the plan. The plan is to educate, to give facts and to explain, but, but very important that it’s age appropriate.

Crystal: And what’s next for climate education in New Jersey? Well,

Mrs. Murphy: as I was explaining to you, we have this first in the nation office of climate change education, and we have just added our senior advisor there, which is fantastic.

She is a really experienced, you know, we will continue to roll out the standards because we’ve now got to work with the English language arts and the math standards to make sure that all of the content that we have in our toolkit is, is ready and we’re ready to launch that in 2024. And then I would just say that people like you are going to help tremendously because we can’t do this on our own.

I’m, I’m really glad that New Jersey is out there and is, is leading the way, but New Jersey is not going to fix this existential challenge, in my opinion, on our own. We need everybody to lean in, and we have had some other states. Call and say, how can we, how did you do this? What can we do? How do we, how do we go from here?

We’ve had different countries reach out to us asking us for guidance. So there is a lot of opportunity and we will continue to not only hone that which we’re doing for New Jersey, but everything we’re doing, our website, the online portal, everything is, is publicly available. So anybody can go on there.

We’re not, we’re not trying to, you know, hoard everything for ourselves. We’re really trying to make sure that everybody has the resources they need at their fingertips. And if it’s somebody from another state or another country, and they want to partner with us, then great.

Crystal: So a question that I usually ask my guests is Tell me about a time when you said to yourself, this, this is why I do it.

So a proud moment or a success story.

Mrs. Murphy: So I would tell you three points here. First of all, I first became aware of climate change and the need to pay attention when I lived in Germany in the early nineties and I was really. Overwhelmed by an entire country that was recycling and was focused on not wasting resources, which Germany was doing.

And they also were ahead of the game. Particularly for the United States, because if one went to the grocery store and didn’t bring one’s own bag, then yes, you could buy a bag, but the, the glares and the public embarrassment was really too much to handle. So that, that’s something they were well ahead of us on.

And this is in the 90s? In the 90s, exactly. Okay. And then in the, in the early thousands, whenever, 2008, I think, Al Gore asked me if I would. Uh, join his Climate Reality Action Fund as secretary and one of the founding directors, which I did. And today I continue to serve as a board member of the Climate Reality Project.

So that also has educated me over time in terms of climate change and both the challenges and the opportunities. But I think if there’s one piece that you’re going to ask me to point to. It’s my four children. I have four children and I can see the direction we’re going. If we don’t make some changes to the way we navigate this planet, then we’re handing them a real problem.

So in my opinion, they all have said they wish they had been taught. In this curriculum, there are now older, but, but I do see that this is going to be beneficial for not just the next generation, but those who follow as they will be able to be the ones who are thinking out of the box.

Crystal: I just want to circle back to something that you mentioned before that you have grants for schools.

How can schools find these grants?

Mrs. Murphy: So, the answer to that is right now, the grants are not being offered. We are in the process of reassessing and re, um, evaluating how we deliver those grants. We want to make sure. So we’re testing to make sure that the way. And the methodology, the uses of the grants is the most effective way to implement the education.

So we are, we stay tuned on that. We are working on it as we speak and we’ll hopefully be rolling something either the same, but I think it’ll be slightly tweaked moving forward.

Crystal: Excellent. So any of my listeners who are educators, at least they have that resource.

Mrs. Murphy: Sure. I’d say go on to the Department of Ed here.

In New Jersey is housing all of the resources, but I think that we are going to make sure that everybody knows how to access these, particularly those that haven’t yet had access to the grants. And what

Crystal: can the listener do to help spread climate change education, like whoever they are or wherever they may be?

Mrs. Murphy: Well, I, I mean, I would say first educate yourselves. Go on to our toolkit and navigate it. Just play around there and see what you see and direct others to do that. I would also just say, please know that everyone who works together with me and my entire team and, and the department of education, we are really focused on this.

And if we can help in any way, if there’s something that is missing, something that you want to see that you don’t see, we are very interested in knowing that. But I would just say be aware and try and educate yourself and then try and talk to others about it.

Crystal: Okay, great. Mrs. Murphy, is there anything else that you would like to add?

Mrs. Murphy: Hmm, I just would say please lean in and help us and remember we are the first state. In the United States to do this, but we are desperate to have others to join us. So please, if you have any interest, then reach out to my office or to the Department of Ed and we’re all in.

Crystal: I’m so excited that my nieces and nephews are in Jersey and they’re going to be able to get this education.

Thank you, Mrs. Murphy, for all that you’re doing. You’re making a difference.

Mrs. Murphy: Thank you so much, Crystal. As are you.

Crystal: Recently, I’ve been wanting to get back into environmental education myself. And so I created a standards aligned program for schools and universities that focuses on the top actions experts are saying that we as individuals can take to reduce our carbon footprint. Spoiler alert. It’s not recycling.

I’ve piloted it with a number of classes and it’s ready to go out to other schools and teachers. If you or someone you know is looking to get students addressing human impact in a real world solutions oriented way, send me a message at crystal at forces for nature. com. And tell your kids schools about what New Jersey is doing to prepare our students for the future.

They have a website full of resources and are happy to help anyone who’s looking to get on board. Don’t forget to go to forcesfornature. com and sign up to receive emailed show notes, action tips, and a free checklist to help you start taking practical actions today. Do you know someone else who would enjoy this episode?

I would be so grateful if you would share it with them. Hit me up on Instagram and Facebook at Becoming Forces for Nature and let me know what actions you have been taking. Adopting just one habit can be a game changer because imagine if a million people also adopted that. What difference for the world are you going to make today?