Crystal: [00:00:00] 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, what keeps them going, and And we’ll [00:00:30] leave you with practical action tips so that you, too, can become a force for nature.

Today’s guest is Bryce Kuhn, the Director of Education Initiatives at EarthDay. org. EarthDay. org’s mission is to grow the world’s largest environmental movement, and spreading knowledge is one of the tactics they use. And with the education programming I do, I totally agree with that. Teaching about climate change is imperative to making [00:01:00] progress in our journey to mitigate it.

As humans, we’re often afraid of what we don’t know, which I believe is one of the reasons why there are so many people who push against addressing this growing threat. Bryce is working to change that and make it easy for teachers to do so.

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

Bryce: Thank you for having me. [00:01:30]

Crystal: I’m excited to be talking about climate education because it’s such a vital topic in today’s day and age and something that is really near and dear to my heart. And so let’s just dive right into it.

Why is climate education even important for both individuals and communities?

Bryce: Thank you. Great question. To start with, if we’re going to solve a problem, we need to understand the problem. And to explore the solutions to that problem, [00:02:00] and especially among young people, there’s a lot of concern about the climate crisis, and I think that climate education is a very important tool for addressing this concern, and also starting to build student efficacy or community efficacy to believe that we can do something about the climate crisis.

Crystal: Where are we at with climate education in the U. S. versus other parts of the world?

Bryce: Yeah. Well, in the U. S., you know, our education system can be a little tricky because we’re a federalized [00:02:30] nation, which means that each state is in charge of their standards, their curriculum. And even within a state, the curriculum can Broken down by districts and the Canada, Germany, they have similar structures.

So in the United States, it depends on the state. New Jersey is the leading example for climate education in the United States. They are the only state that has mandatory K through 12 Climate education embedded across their curriculum. They have an office of climate education. There are states [00:03:00] like Washington and California which have embedded climate education principles standards into their education and have teacher training around this and there are states with current legislation Virginia, Maryland and And the state of New York currently has a bill that is similar to what New Jersey is doing.

Internationally, there are some highlights for someone embedding climate education at the country level. Italy would be the shining example there. And we also see [00:03:30] climate education in the United Kingdom, Chile, and India.

Crystal: Yeah, I was very excited. Being in Italy myself, I was very excited to learn that.

Italy actually already has it in their curriculum. So wonderful news. And I have kids shown an interest in learning about it because you kind of hear both sides, I guess.

Bryce: For sure. I think that young people are very interested in learning about climate education. I have seen, I don’t have it in front of [00:04:00] me, but I have seen the data that supports this.

But anecdotally, you just you hear of young people asking for more around climate education, asking their teachers, asking their parents, looking at the situation and, and wondering, you know, why aren’t we doing more? So I think many of these calls. are coming from young people. And I think that’s exciting because that is a demographic that people want to listen to and don’t want to let down.

Crystal: How can we help equip teachers to teach about this topic, [00:04:30] especially if they might not have had this education when they were in school?

Bryce: If we start with the two main reasons why teachers are not teaching about climate change education, the two reasons are that they don’t feel like they understand the topic well enough and that they don’t understand how it connects to their curriculum.

So we need to build those connections and that understanding and there are training guides and resources would be very important to to achieve this. That’s something that we’re working at at Earth Day dot org right now is [00:05:00] developing materials that show how to do this across all subject areas. We want to host some convenings with teacher leaders as well and show what this training looks like and then have them take that training back to their schools.

And find examples of people already doing climate education so that they can see this being modeled and think about how they can do it in their classes as well.

Crystal: And the training guide that EarthDay. org is creating, it’s going to help give examples of how it fits within the curriculum and [00:05:30] whatnot?

Bryce: One way to think about that would be to look at one document we’ve created that already exists, which is called the Climate Literate Lesson Guide.

And it helps a teacher take a lesson that they already have, that already exists, and and turn it into a climate literate lesson. So it has questions for the teacher to consider before instruction, during instruction, and post instruction about how to incorporate principles of climate change education, the social emotional learning considerations that should be made so [00:06:00] that you could take a lesson that you are already planning on teaching.

So for example, In my previous career, when I was a social studies teacher, I might be teaching a government lesson about how a bill becomes a law. Well, that’s a standard that already exists. It’s something that I have already making time for in my lessons. But I could teach about how a group of indigenous people used the legislative process to advocate for land rights over an oil pipeline.

And I can bring in these, these connections to climate change and climate equity and [00:06:30] justice into a lesson that I was already going to be teaching.

Crystal: Oh, I love that. And I really feel like teachers would value that because it’s not something new. It’s something that we’re already doing. So it’s kind of like the lowest hanging fruit.

So that’s, exactly. And so,

Bryce: and it already, that already exists. And one of my colleagues actually made a video of walking through how you can do this with different lessons at the elementary, middle school and high school level. And also this is an activity that teachers will be familiar with [00:07:00] because we’re going In professional development, it’s not uncommon to take a lesson and then add another component to it.

So, for example, you might be having a lesson and then, you know, we would have a anti racist guide. And so you’d take a lesson that you were already planning on teaching and say, Okay, how do I make this lesson an anti racist lesson? So it’s building within this framework that teachers and administrators already understand and do on a regular basis.

Crystal: And this is readily available on your website for teachers to download?

Bryce: Yep, it is.

Crystal: Okay. [00:07:30] What are the most important elements needed in climate education? Like what elements have you seen really engage students the most?

Bryce: Currently, students are receiving most of their climate change education if they’re receiving it within their, their science classes.

So I think that if they’re There is teaching around it. It is around the causes scientifically, and I think that it’s important, and I think that students respond to adding that human element, whether it’s in the science class or an English class or a social science class, [00:08:00] and understanding how this impacts people and how they can use different subjects to address climate change.

Crystal: That’s a good point actually, humanizing it is certainly a really good strategy. And how can you tailor the approach to climate change education for all the levels? So for example, you were talking about New Jersey. They have standards from K through 12 in every grade. So how do you teach climate change in gym class or to an elementary versus a middle school that, that sort [00:08:30] of thing.

Bryce: That speaks to the need for standardized climate education in my mind. And If you look at New Jersey, they created an office of climate change education where they bring in experts and consult other experts in the field to answer that question. So, with these considerations about how we should be teaching this to different levels from a, From a social emotional standpoint, from a science standpoint, where, where everyone’s at.[00:09:00]

I don’t think that there’s one expert in the field who could answer all the considerations that need to be made. And so that’s why it’s so important that we standardize climate education, that we get it in the books and that we also have a department and office of climate education in each state that is making those decisions and making sure that children are receiving this information in a way that is fact based.

meaningful and provides children time to, to process the information that they’re receiving.

Crystal: We can teach all the facts and [00:09:30] figures and everything, but we’ve learned that knowledge doesn’t necessarily translate into action. How can we also instill in our kids the desire to make a difference?

Bryce: That’s a great point.

I think sometimes when we’re thinking about the climate crisis and the solutions to the climate crisis, We forget to think about what we’re fighting for, and that’s one of the reasons why I think that some aspects of non formal education are really important to getting children out into nature, biodiversity [00:10:00] education, to look around and see what we are protecting.

And sadly, if you, if you look at a classroom or you look at the data, you can see that, well, all people, but more young people are spending extreme amount of time on their phones and in front of screens. Yeah. And there’s data to suggest that they are losing that connection with nature. And anecdotally, I did see that in my classroom where even over the course of a decade, where, when I was.[00:10:30]

Earlier in my career, students would be like, you know, can we have class outside? Was like a very common thing that students would say, especially in the spring. And by the end of my career, I didn’t get that question as much. And it was me trying to bring my students outside and the, you know, but the grass might be wet or it would be too hot or too cold.

And it didn’t seem like they wanted to be outside as much. And so I think that It is really important to find [00:11:00] opportunities to build that love of nature and to acknowledge that my comfort level with experiencing nature might be different than my students. So maybe I need to, to start small.

Crystal: Yeah, I, I run into that even personally for myself, I live in a city and you know, I want to experience nature, but it’s not right outside my door.

So. I’m like, how, how can people experience nature, especially when they’re not immersed in it? Um, it’s kind of the [00:11:30] million dollar question.

Bryce: Yeah. And it’s so important. And we know that spending time in nature, even as little as 15 minutes is good for our mental health, which is another thing that we know that again, everybody, but the data suggests that young people are really struggling.

So, you know, finding opportunities to spend time in nature and grow that, that love of nature so that we know what we are fighting for.

Crystal: There’s really no shortage of resources. There are, like you were saying, a lot of, a lot of curricula that you can find online. How can [00:12:00] teachers find the best ones, including your own?

Bryce: Yeah, I was going to say by going to earthday. org and going to our teacher materials, but, but truthfully, we did just collaborate with some partners, including Subject to Climate, which is one of the leaders in curriculum development. And we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, We’re released a Earth Month calendar that has activities for, for teachers every day.

And it starts off the month a little bit more [00:12:30] about the learning side of climate change. And then as the month moves on, switches to a little bit more of an advocacy role. So if there’s any teachers looking for materials for Earth Month specifically, that’s a great guide for them that has materials K through 12 for them to, to use.

I would think that, you know, teachers should find materials that. That speak to them that align with their interests. If they’re trying to bring it into the classroom, because if you’re excited about it as an educator, it’s much more likely you’re going to get [00:13:00] your students excited about it. So if you only have time right now, before we have standardized climate education universally, you know, think about, you know, Where you can fit that in what what your passions are and what your students interests and passions are.

Crystal: I’ll include a link to that calendar in the show notes so that people can can have it. For after Earth Month, there are other resources though, right, that you guys have.

Bryce: Correct. And the Climate Literate Lesson Guide is something that can be [00:13:30] used.

Crystal: So I like just experiencing this myself. How can we avoid triggering eco anxiety in our students when we teach about this heavy topic?

Do you have any suggestions?

Bryce: We believe that it’s really important that we offer students a solutions focused mindset when it comes to climate education. So looking at. The green economy, for example, thinking about the way that young people are going to have so many opportunities in this [00:14:00] growing green economy to hopefully innovate even more solutions.

And they don’t necessarily get the attention that some of the more doom and gloom components of climate change get. But there are some amazing innovations out there and potential for AI to combat climate change. And again, I’m not, that’s not my area of expertise, so I can’t speak on that at length. But I think looking at some of those solutions can help combat that anxiety and foster optimism.[00:14:30]

I mean, I’m a strong believer in that. If you think about what’s happened in AI in the last year or two and how much everyone’s learned and what we see that it’s capable of, you can imagine that, you know, in a decade, we’re going to be dealing with very different technologies. And those technologies are going to be able to address climate change.

And I think that’s really exciting.

Crystal: I do too, and I agree with you regarding how being solutions focused can combat eco anxiety. In fact, Forces for [00:15:00] Nature has its own education program called the Eco Action Lab, and it’s all focused on individual action and reducing one’s own carbon footprint. I agree with you on that.

I’m glad you said it.

Bryce: And there is, you know, in terms of climate change education, I didn’t mention this earlier, but there is data that learning about the climate crisis and these solutions results in a reduction in CO2 emissions. The data, the data supports it and that can foster efficacy among young [00:15:30] people.

And then as they change their behaviors, people around them will notice and it’ll have community effects.

Crystal: Ripple effects for sure. How can teachers teach this with efficacy and ease? Because they’re already super busy. Do you have any tricks for teachers listening?

Bryce: Well, it’s a difficult question. And as someone who taught for over a decade, I know what that reality looks like.

And one of the things that teachers hear all the time, [00:16:00] many of them cannot stand is when you’re in a professional development and they’re asking you to do something new. And they say, you know, we’re not asking you to do anything new. We’re asking you just to, just to talk about what you’re already doing.

And you’re like, No, you’re asking me to do something new. Yeah. And so I think, you know, if I’m leading a training on climate change education, I would just address that. You know, I am asking you to do something that you haven’t done. I am asking you to try and fit in [00:16:30] one more thing. And. I think with climate change education, it’s just acknowledging that this is such an important topic to, to bring in, and especially when we think about young people and their eco anxiety, we need to be doing this.

And so we are asking for 1 more thing, and maybe there is 1 thing that has to move to the back burner a little bit. But this also speaks to the need to standardize climate education to make a home for it so that it [00:17:00] isn’t just this one off. I’m going to teach about climate change one time. I’m going to feel like it’s something extra.

So I’m going to rush through it. My students aren’t going to have time to really process the information that I’m giving them. So, yes, there’s ways to do it now, but it’s so important that we we just keep advocating. for listening. for all states and all countries to have climate change education embedded into their standards.

Crystal: In an era of widespread misinformation, what strategies would you [00:17:30] suggest for teachers and administrators to employ to combat myths and misconceptions about climate change, especially if they’re teaching it and then they have people come to them that they don’t want? it being taught.

Bryce: That’s difficult.

And I will,

Crystal: I

Bryce: will answer that question, but I’ll give you kind of my common line first. This is why it’s so important to have standardized climate change standards and why it’s so important to have an office of climate education with [00:18:00] experts, making sure that everything is age appropriate fact based because then when there are concerns about that.

You, you have these experts to point at, and you have these standards to, to defend what you’re doing instead of it just being, you know, an individual. So advocating for K through 12 climate education standards is so important and to have an office of experts that are guiding these standards. You know, if you’re in a state or a country that doesn’t have climate change education currently, [00:18:30] And you’re concerned about running into that, I think addressing it, and you could use lessons on corroborating sources and evaluating sources, which is done in English classes and social studies classes and science classes.

You could use those lessons to explore climate change education. And so you could have the students themselves evaluating the information. Is this fact? Is this not fact?

Crystal: And how would you measure the effectiveness and impact of climate education initiatives? You actually mentioned [00:19:00] just a moment ago on how it’s been shown to even reduce one’s own carbon footprint.

Bryce: It depends on what we’re trying to measure. So So for me, when I think about climate change education, a lot of times I do think about the climate anxiety and depression that young people are feeling today. Because when I was a teacher and I talked to students, they either were very anxious and concerned that we weren’t doing more, or they had the effect of just shutting down and not wanting to, to talk about this at all.

And [00:19:30] I think truthfully that those are both a response to climate anxiety. It’s just two different responses to it. So I would. I love to see data on the effect that climate change education has had on students well being or eco anxiety, as we talked about earlier. It’s still so early, though, to be gathering this data.

You know, we have New Jersey that is going to be the first place that we get this data from, but they’re in the implementation stage, and [00:20:00] we will have to wait some time to get that data. So that’s data that I’m really excited about. In terms of understanding the causes and solutions of the climate crisis, that’s another reason why we would need standardized climate education so that we can build it into assessments, and so we can collect data on that.

And be thoughtful with identifying what are our goals. What do we want everybody to know? And then we can measure that. It’s very important to have a group of people, a group of experts who are identifying what we want young people to know and have [00:20:30] everyone understand about the climate crisis so we can assess that in a meaningful way.

Crystal: Do you have a proud moment or a success story that you can share where you said to yourself, this, this is why I do it.

Bryce: We typically work on a large scale where we’re advocating for climate education at the international level, the national level and the state level. But for me, it is when we have opportunities to engage with the young people themselves.

And so, especially as a former [00:21:00] educator, trying to find those opportunities to, whether it’s virtually or in person, talk about this subject with young people and see their interests, see their passion. This is in the future, but I’m really excited that, you know, some of the local districts here are doing Earth Day.

expos and have invited me and our team to come in and do workshops with all different age ranges K through 12. And when we can take what we’re doing and see their interest and excitement about it, that’s, [00:21:30] that’s very motivating.

Crystal: I mean, I love when you could see a kid have an aha moment. It’s,

Bryce: yeah,

Crystal: it’s the best.

Finally, what can the listener do to help and bring in climate literacy to their school or their community or even themselves? Use

Bryce: this. It’s really important to be advocating for climate education wherever you are. There are places, as we mentioned, Italy and then within the U. S., New Jersey, that have climate education, so there would be less advocacy and more thinking about [00:22:00] ways to support climate education in the classroom.

But, you know, so many states either have pending legislation, like New York, it’s a great bill. I’ll be going up to, to Albany later this month to meet with some state lawmakers and to, to advocate for that. And if, if there’s any listeners in New York, you could support this bill as well. Talk to your, your state representatives, but there, you know, we, we mentioned a few states that have pending legislation.

Climate education, which means that the vast majority do not [00:22:30] have specific climate education. They may have it through some through the NGSS, the science standards in the United States that are adopted by multiple states, but even then those that’s just in the sciences. It’s not an interdisciplinary approach.

So advocating at the state level and the United States talking with school boards. We’re going to create a system where people will be able to connect and advocate directly to their state superintendent and call for climate education. And then lastly, [00:23:00] wherever someone is, I think just talking with young people about climate education, what you know about it, what they know about it.

How to call for it, because that’s a group of people that, you know, I do think people want to listen to.

Crystal: They do. They want to listen to. Bryce, this was great chatting with you. I love what you’re doing. I find it super important. Thank you for all that you do. You’re making a difference.

Bryce: Thank you. You as well.

It was great to be on.[00:23:30]

Crystal: There’s a saying, in the end, we will conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught. Climate education should not just be an academic requirement to check off. It’s a necessity for a societal transformation towards greater sustainability.

We need to encourage and support our teachers in this, and not just in teaching the facts and figures of climate change. [00:24:00] There are solutions out there at every level. And in learning about them, we could all be more prepared to tackle the challenges we are facing head on. 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 happy. 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 [00:24:30] 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?