Climate education (k-12)
Why do we need climate change K-12 education?
Climate change education is necessary to address climate change, and is overwhelmingly supported across the world. While climate education is important across all levels of education, offering curricula during primary and secondary education (e.g., kindergarten through grade 12) is crucial to foster awareness and empowerment at an early age.
In a global survey of nearly 17,500 youth, 91% of young people said they would like to have more climate change education in school. Their primary concerns and demands were about:
- The quality of current climate education
- The disconnect between what they learn about climate change and how they can take action
- The need for diverse aspects of climate change to be embedded across subjects
Research has demonstrated specific benefits of climate education, from changing individual attitudes and behaviors, to reducing carbon emissions, to socioemotional benefits, such that climate education promotes feelings of hope and empowerment about fighting climate change and encourages climate activism among young people. Climate education can also help develop young peoples’ capacities for jobs to support a global transition to a green economy and have agency in being part of climate solutions, such as technical courses in secondary schools that prepare students for working in specific trades.
Despite the benefits of climate change education and global interest in adding it to school curricula, educators face challenges to teaching about climate change, such as: How to engage young people in equitable conversations about climate change and intersecting issues, like economic and racial justice? How to talk about climate change without increasing students’ climate anxiety and distress? These concerns highlight a need for solutions-focused climate education and training for teachers that includes socioemotional learning (skills and knowledge to process and cope with difficult emotions).
Students are most often learning about climate change in science class, but, there may be even greater benefits of teaching about climate change across disciplines. A report from California found that 81% of students who received climate education in art or music class reported taking climate action, as compared to 54% who received this education in science class (ECCLPs, 2023). Teachers want to educate students about climate change across disciplines, but most have had to educate themselves rather than receive formal training. Thus, interdisciplinary approaches to climate education have greater reach and impact on youth knowledge and skills to address climate change.
A brief history of climate education
Climate education entered public awareness after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its first report (1990).
United Nations (UN) Conference on Environment and Development established international commitments to climate education via the Agenda 21 action plan. Governments and non-profits started to promote climate literacy through school programs and media.
In the U.S., then Senator Barack Obama and Representative Michael Honda created the Climate Change Education Act to establish an Office of Climate Change Education at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to guide climate literacy plans in schools and community programs.
UNESCO developed the Climate Change Education for Sustainable Development program to expand climate change awareness and build capacity for mitigation.
The Paris Agreement, an international treaty signed at the UN Climate Change Conference, included climate education as a tool for action.
Here’s a few examples from around the world on how different countries have integrated climate education into standards:
- The Australian National Curriculum mandated inclusion of climate change education into science subjects in 2010
- Kenya introduced Competency-Based Curriculum in 2017, embedding climate education into primary and secondary school learning
- In 2019, Italy became the first country to mandate climate change coursework in all public schools
- Cambodia added climate education into earth science curriculum for higher secondary school students starting in 2020
- The United States (U.S.) introduced the Next Generation Science Standards in 2013, which included climate education. Some states are taking leadership:
- In 2018, Washington developed the ClimeTime program, a statewide initiative to provide grant funding and resources to support teacher professional development and student learning opportunities in climate education across all disciplines
- In 2020, New Jersey was the first state to mandate teaching about climate change in all subjects starting in kindergarten
Despite these global initiatives and progress, a 2021 review found that only half of the 100 countries surveyed mention climate change in national curricula. This sparked the launch of the UNESCO Greening Education Partnership in 2022 to support embedding quality interdisciplinary climate change education.
How does climate education impact mental health & wellbeing?
Climate change impacts student learning as extreme weather events increase in frequency and severity. It is estimated that between January 2022 and June 2024, over 400 million students experienced disruptions to education due to extreme weather, leading to school closures and student dropouts, with worse impacts seen in low- and middle-income countries. Even with schools open, students’ ability to learn and cognitive performance is impacted by worsening air pollution and rising temperatures.
Around the world, youth are reporting high rates of distress, including anxiety, powerlessness, fear, sadness, and anger, due to climate change and its impacts. As such, when teaching about climate change, the emotional dimensions must be considered. In an assessment of climate education in primary school settings, only 7% of countries included socioemotional learning. Providing students with a safe emotional environment to learn about climate change is as important as the content.
Teachers can draw on socioemotional learning frameworks to create a supportive, relational classroom setting where climate emotions can be normalized and validated. This may look like:
- Integrating emotional awareness and coping into teacher education curricula, such as encouraging students to explore climate change emotions in response to artwork and then through their own artistic expression
- Offering students emotional expression tools, such as the Climate Emotions Wheel from the Climate Mental Health Network
Teachers are encouraged to provide students opportunities for engaging in action as a way to combat feelings of distress and promote justice. Collective climate action is particularly helpful to connect students with like-minded peers, which not only offers protective social support, but will have a greater systemic impact. Teachers can empower students as experts on messaging with younger generations to communicate climate concepts. Discussing youth-led climate movements can increase students’ motivation and agency to take action by showcasing examples that doing so will have an impact.
Unequal impacts
Inquiry- and place-based approaches to learning make climate change relevant to students’ own lives and communities. Inquiry-based learning encourages students to think about their own behaviors in the context of the world around them. For example, teaching about how climate change intersects with food security and food production can encourage students to consider their food choices, where and how food is produced, and the global planetary impact of food production and consumptions practices.
Place-based learning can help tie climate change concepts to impacts experienced directly in students’ neighborhoods. In one example, a lesson plan from SubjectToClimate discusses the consequences of outsize pollution levels from fossil fuel and petrochemical industries, for individuals living in “Cancer Alley” Louisiana, between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, which has a poverty rate of nearly 19% and 40% of residents are Black. The Bronx, which includes several high poverty neighborhoods, experiences a similar burden of pollution in “Asthma Alley” with disproportionate consequences for Black and Hispanic residents. Students living in these regions may be more motivated to take action once they learn about what is happening to their local communities.
Climate education quality and access is not equal around the world. Many places in the Global South as well as frontline communities in the Global North have less funding and resources for teacher professional development and classroom resources and have higher early school dropout rates. Increasing awareness about the inequitable impacts of climate change can encourage students to be thoughtful about addressing inequality and vulnerability when taking climate action.
What can we do to improve and implement climate education?
1. Providing training & support to teachers, including free, practical resources for teaching about climate change, and time and space to engage.
Several free resources exist to support teachers in teaching about climate change. Teach for All is a global network that offers a Climate Education Resource Hub for pre-primary, primary, and secondary school. Teachers can filter by region, resource type (e.g., lesson plan, case study), language, and subject. SubjectToClimate is a non-profit organization in the U.S. that provides free K through 12 resources and lesson plans for educators to teach about climate change across academic subjects in standards-aligned ways. See more in the resources below.
2. Create education standards and mandates to include climate in curricula.
More work and advocacy are needed to create education standard mandates around the world. Under the Paris Agreement, many nations are including in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) for 2025 public education about the impacts of climate change on human health. EarthDay.org has a Climate Education NDCs tracker to monitor mentions of climate education in NDCs. The Monitoring and Evaluating Climate Communication and Education (MECCE) Project, provides an overview of country profiles detailing national climate change communication and education laws and policies, allowing for comparison of country-level progress and provides benchmarks to encourage progress.
3. Getting involved locally – talk about it, attend school board meetings.
Intergenerational partnerships can help youth connect with adults to discuss climate impacts and advocate for high quality interdisciplinary climate education. Research has demonstrated that children’s climate education can in influence parents’ behaviors and concerns about climate change. Conversations about climate change at home can in turn support school instruction on the topic and vice versa.
4. Funding.
On a global scale, partnerships are necessary to finance climate-resilient education systems, particularly in countries with less access to resources. The partnership between the Green Climate Fund, the Global Partnership for Education, and Save the Children is one example of an on ongoing effort to invest in green schools.
5. Combatting climate denial and misinformation.
Climate-denial organizations, funded by fossil fuel and related industries, attempt to undermine climate education efforts, such as by supplying misleading or false education materials about climate change. Teaching media literacy, advocacy to end fossil fuel industry sponsorship of educational resources, and establishing fossil-free partnerships and funding for schools are critical steps.
What else might we need to know?
- The burden should not fall on teachers alone to add climate education into their curricula – policies, mandates, and resources must be directed towards schools to provide practical support.
- Climate education equips young people with life-long skills to address climate change and manage climate emotions in their careers, civic responsibilities, and life experiences.
Further reading
Books
The Existential Toolkit for Climate Justice Educators: How to Teach in a Burning World, edited by Jennifer Atkinson & Sarah Jaquette Ray, published in 2024 by University of California Press
This resource shares perspectives from experts across disciplines, including scholars, educators, activists, artists, game designers on approaches to integrating emotions into climate education curricula. Students and educators will benefit from pedagogical tools and skills offered to build resilience and advance climate justice.
Resources for the Classroom–Guides
An Educator’s Guide to Climate Emotions, by the Climate Psychology Alliance of North America, Educators and School Counselors Committee
Alongside activities, this guide from the Climate Psychology Alliance explains what to expect when teaching with climate emotions in mind.
Climate Emotions Toolkit for Educators, developed by the National Environmental Education Foundation & Climate Mental Health Network
This free guide offers an evidence-based, teacher-tested resource for middle school teachers to address climate change emotions in the classroom.
Resources for the classroom–Websites
SubjectToClimate is a non-profit organization in the U.S. that provides free K through 12 resources for educators to teach about climate change across academic subjects in standards-aligned ways.
Teach for All is a global network that offers a Climate Education Resource Hub for pre-primary, primary, and secondary school. Teachers can filter by region, resource type (e.g., lesson plan, case study), language, and subject.
Kids Fight Climate Change is a youth-led non-profit organization which creates accessible, educational content for students of all academic backgrounds to be able to learn about climate change. Kids Fight Climate Change uses education to empower youth to take action to stop climate change and transform the planet.
Native Resilience, provides teaching resources, which offer adapted K-12 education materials that are rooted in Indigenous practices and knowledge.
Selected Research/Scientific Papers
Cordero, E. C., Centeno, D., & Todd, A. M. (2020). The role of climate change education on individual lifetime carbon emissions. PlOS One, 15, e0206266. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0206266
Dong, J., Schwartz, Y., Korolija, I., & Mumovic, D. (2023). The impact of climate change on cognitive performance of children in english school stock: A simulation study. Building and Environment, 243, 110607. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2023.110607
ECCLPSs. (2024). ECCLPs HS student survey report. ECCLPs. https://ecclps.net/hs-ss-report
Greer, K., Sheldrake, R., Rushton, E., Kitson, A., Hargreaves, E., & Walshe, N. (2023). Teaching climate change and sustainability: A survey of teachers in England. University College London, London, UK. Retrieved at https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/departments-and-centres/centres/ucl-centre-climate-change-and-sustainability-education
Hickman, C., Marks, E., Pihkala, P., Clayton, S., Lewandowski, R. E., Mayall, E. E., Wray, B., Mellor, C., & van Susteren, L. (2021). Climate anxiety in children and young people and their beliefs about government responses to climate change: a global survey. The Lancet. Planetary health, 5(12), e863–e873. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(21)00278-3
Kolenatý, M., Kroufek, R., & Činčera, J. (2022). What triggers climate action: The impact of a climate change education program on students’ climate literacy and their willingness to act. Sustainability, 14, 10365. https://doi.org/10.3390/su141610365
Kutney, G. (2024). Climate Denial – the Antithesis of Climate Education: A Review. EGUsphere, 1-46. https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-339
Lawson, D. F., Stevenson, K. T., Peterson, M. N., Carrier, S. J., L. Strnad, R., & Seekamp, E. (2019). Children can foster climate change concern among their parents. Nature Climate Change, 9(6), 458–462. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-019-0463-3
Lewandowski, R. E., Clayton, S. D., Olbrich, L., Sakshaug, J. W., Wray, B., Schwartz, S. E. O., Augustinavicius, J., Howe, P. D., Parnes, M., Wright, S., Carpenter, C., Wiśniowski, A., Ruiz, D. P., & Van Susteren, L. (2024). Climate emotions, thoughts, and plans among US adolescents and young adults: a cross-sectional descriptive survey and analysis by political party identification and self-reported exposure to severe weather events. The Lancet. Planetary health, 8(11), e879–e893. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(24)00229-8
Ma, J., & Chen, Y.D. (2023). Essential but challenging climate change education in the Global South. Nature Climae Change, 13, 1151–1153. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01839-6
Madden, L., Joshi, A., Wang, M., Turner, J., & Lindsay, S. (2023). Parents’ Perspectives on Climate Change Education: A Case Study From New Jersey. ECNU Review of Education, 8(1), 184-202. https://doi.org/10.1177/20965311231200507
Oziewicz, M. (2024). The climate literacy revolution. The Ecological Citizen, 7, 16-23. https://www.ecologicalcitizen.net/pdfs/epub-103.pdf
Parnes, M. F., Turner, J., Wang, M., Bae, J., Dorritie, B., Subramanian, M., & Schwartz, S. E. O. (2025). Teaching about climate change in US classrooms. Theory Into Practice, 64(2), 235–248. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405841.2025.2453372
Sabarwal, S., Marin, S. V., Spivak, M., & Ambasz, D. (2024). Choosing our future: Education for climate action. World Bank. Retrieved from https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/9d1c318a-bcd3-49fa-b1c6-cc03e18d4670/content
Schwartz, S. E. O., Benoit, L., Clayton, S., Parnes, M., Swenson, L., & Lowe, S. (2022). Climate change anxiety and mental health: Environmental activism as buffer. Current Psychology, 42, 16708-16721. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-02735-6
Trott, C. D., Lam, S., Roncker, J., Gray, E. S., Courtney, R. H., & Even, T. L. (2023). Justice in climate change education: a systematic review. Environmental Education Research, 29, 1535-1572. https://doi-org./10.1080/13504622.2023.21p265
UNESCO (2024). Education and climate change: learning to act for people and planet. Global Education Monitoring Report. https://doi.org/10.54676/GVXA4765
UNESCO (2022). Youth demands for quality climate change education. UNESCO. https://unescodoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000383615
Author and version info
Published: April 11, 2025
Author: McKenna Parnes, PhD, MSEd
Acting Assistant Professor, Treuman Katz Center for Pediatric Bioethics and Palliative Care, Seattle Children’s Research Institute
Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington
https://www.seattlechildrens.org/directory/mckenna-parnes/
Editor: Colleen Rollins, PhD