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By Liam Beretsky-Jewell

 Note: This is the third of a series of articles exploring climate change education in Somerville Public Schools (SPS). The prior article can be found here.

In recent years, climate education initiatives have been piloted in a growing number of middle school classrooms throughout the city. These efforts have been led by Jason Behrens, the SPS innovation specialist, who introduced a climate unit into sixth-grade science classrooms at the West Somerville and Argenziano schools. For the upcoming school year, the climate unit will be expanded to sixth graders at all of the city’s public schools. “I think this is the most intentional [climate] unit that we have,” he explained, adding that these schools are adopting a climate change unit created in collaboration with Tufts University. The entire science curriculum is currently under review across grades 6, 7, and 8, which he sees as an opportunity to add a climate unit: “Whatever curriculum we decide to pick for middle grades, there’s going to be a fair amount of climate integration that we’re going to build into that.” This ongoing review is one reason climate education is advancing more quickly in middle school than at the high school level. It’s where the district’s primary focus is now.

Behrens explained that the district is trying to create a curriculum trajectory that expands the “library of [climate] knowledge that students are getting each year, so they have a little bit more in the toolbelt.” Eventually, he hopes that, come graduation, students will possess strong knowledge about the science behind climate change and the impact that certain actions and policies can have on the environment and society. “We’ll set [students] up with other skills, like how to advocate or hook into existing movements … and make the big changes we need in order to stave off the worst effects of climate change that loom ahead,” he added.

Another factor that makes these changes easier to push at the middle school level is the higher degree of collaboration that exists among teachers in the grade schools compared with high school. As Assistant Superintendent Jessica Boston Davis outlined, “In the PK-8 schools, we have common planning time now, which allows for teachers to meet both within their grade level teams … and then also by subject area.” These structures allow for more cross-pollination among teachers and help them prioritize climate as a point of discussion and collaboration. In contrast, the high school has a much greater level of compartmentalization among teachers in different grade levels and departments. In the experience of Maureen Quigley, the high school environmental science teacher, “There are a lot of barriers for the teaching staff to collaborate with one another. On Wednesday afternoons, when we have [staff] meetings, very rarely do I get to see anyone from another department.” Such a barrier would make it difficult for science teachers like Quigley to guide teachers from other departments about incorporating climate into their lessons.

State curriculum frameworks generally don’t prioritize climate change, as discussed in the previous article in this series. As a result, he topic’s inclusion in lessons also largely depends on the curricula that the district purchases to fulfill these frameworks and whether these curricula provide any supplementary climate content. If climate content is not provided, “It will be a little bit of a challenge trying to modify, to make sure that those things are in [the curriculum],” Davis said. “It’s not impossible, and on the list of priorities, I think that’s important, but we’re doing so many other things that unfortunately, [climate] doesn’t always get the energy and attention that it may need,” Davis said that she would consider implementing mandatory climate concepts into some form of science or core-curriculum class.

Behrens explained that such a move wouldn’t be unprecedented. Other school districts and states have taken similar measures. New Jersey developed a full set of climate frameworks after Hurricane Sandy, followed by Connecticut and a number of other states. Additionally, at Boston Public Schools, science teachers and a student advisory group collaborated to develop a framework of lessons that incorporate climate change education into K-12 science classes, designed to “educate students about climate change and how it impacts the planet, both locally and globally,” according to their website.

“And then, of course, MIT, Tufts, Harvard, and all the institutions in the area also are doing their own thing,” Behrens said. In particular, he highlighted MIT’s CATE program – an interdisciplinary, modular, standards-aligned climate change curriculum for U.S. high school teachers that provides training for educators and tools and research developed by MIT. “You have access to all this great stuff that they’ve developed over the years in partnership with teachers,” Behrens said. “It could be a day-long thing, just one class, or a two-week-long unit.”

Although many organizations produce climate education content, those materials – along with the school’s own “homegrown” resources – are fragmented, he said: “It’d be nice if we had a state framework so it could all just fit in.”

He added that “the states most affected by the impacts of [climate change, such as hurricanes] generally seem to be the ones who are moving toward this.” Quigley made a similar observation: “Climate change exists … Some people are really experiencing some severe impacts, but for a lot of us, we’re not dealing with the repercussions right now.” She said that climate education has the power to help people make those connections. “A lot of the really good, innovative, creative ideas, especially on how to solve environmental problems, come from younger people, because people in the older generations oftentimes are jaded, stuck in their ways, burned out, tired, or they just can’t think outside the box as easily.”

Science department head Hosking expressed support for lessons with ties to climate change and said she’s “absolutely on board with any department that would like to collaborate with [the science department]” to run interdisciplinary climate electives. She is awaiting the recommendations of the climate committee that Behrens established. However, she stressed that “It takes a lot of time for teachers to think about how [they] want to incorporate topics well into [their] course, and how [they] can design assignments that are engaging for students … and connect to [their] subject matter.” In the upcoming school year, she wants the department to focus on modifying the types of assessments within science classes, and “[make] sure that we’re balancing tests with projects and labs … I think that if climate change could be one of those topics that we’re putting into our unit projects, that could be a really powerful way to do some of this work.”

Behrens added, “It’s slow, you know. We haven’t made enough progress in my opinion, but I think we’re setting the stage for a big leap.”