Global Climate Change in Middle Grades

I continue on my journey to teaching public formal education, and as part of it, I am researching cliamate change curricula, teaching, and assessing in middle grades 5-9.

Global climate change is a world problem that can only be mitigated through international cooperation and wide scientific literacy. Climate is complex. There are a multitude of influences on the weather for any given day, and as such global climate change is highly complex and though many consequences of climate change are widely known, very few citizens truly understand how and why those consequences came/come about.

I intend to research what middle grades educators are doing about climate change education. I will look at national and state standards for evidence of climate change education to see if they even exist. I need help with this research. I need educators who will let me interview and/or observe them teaching. I need an audience for my findings. Where should I publish these findings? And who shall I present them to in order to broadly influence science education?

Of course I can incorporate climate change studies into my own classroom, but how can I help other science teachers do the same? How can I inspire civic action on climate change through education, both of children and adults, educators and general citizens?

Global climate change is the single biggest ecological problem faced by humanity currently, and in the future. The ramifications are widespread, and a possible effect is eventual extinction of the human species if we refuse to adapt our habits. Not for many generations, but as the Great Law of the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) Confederacy states, "In our every deliberation, we must consider the impacts of our decisions on the next seven generations."

Inaction today will lead to destruction for future generations.