ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) – In late February, dozens of young people wearing light blue T-shirts emblazoned with #teachclimate filled a hearing room at the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul. . It was a cold and windy day, in contrast to the state's mostly snowless and warm winters.
High school students, college students and other activists from the group Climate Generation are backing a bill that would require the Minnesota Youth Council, a liaison between young people and state lawmakers, to require schools to teach more about climate change. I asked for
Ethan Vue, who grew up in California's drought and extreme temperatures, now lives in Minnesota and is a high school senior pushing for the bill.
“I just remember my classmates sweating all the time and soaking themselves with water from the fountains,” Vue said in a phone interview, adding that climate change is making heat waves longer and longer. I pointed out that it was getting hotter, but they said they knew nothing about it. Things at school.
“The topic is being ignored. If anything, we just know that there is global warming and the Earth is getting warmer.”
In places where education follows standards developed by the National Science Teachers Association, state governments, and other organizations, many children learn about air quality, ecosystems, biodiversity, land and water in earth and environmental science classes. Learn about.
But students and supporters say that alone is not enough. They're demanding that districts, school boards and state legislatures do more education about global warming, and they want to include it in more courses.
Some states and school districts are going in the opposite direction. In Texas, a school board refused to publish a book with climate information. In Florida, school materials deny climate change.
“Theoretically, some people could graduate middle school or high school without really being aware of the climate crisis,” said Jacob Friedman, a high school senior in Florida who has never learned about climate outside of an elective class. “I'm deaf,” he says. “Or even admit that we have a global warming problem.”
This is strange for Friedman, who experienced firsthand when Hurricane Ian closed nearby schools and flooded homes in 2022.
A study conducted after the storm found that Hurricane Ian's precipitation increased by at least 10% due to climate change. Experts also say hurricanes are rapidly gaining strength because excess greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are trapping heat and warming the oceans.
“What a shame that young people graduate high school without knowing about the greatest existential threat they will face in their lifetimes,” said Leah Kuzba, executive director of the nonprofit Action for the Climate Emergency. That's a fair reality,” he said.
Some places are adding more instruction on this subject. In 2020, New Jersey mandated that climate change be taught in all grades. Connecticut and California followed. More than 20 new measures were introduced in 10 states last year, according to the National Center for Science Education.
While some proposals call for teaching the basic science and human causes of climate change, Minnesota's bill goes further, including the idea that change will hit disadvantaged communities even harder. Requires state officials to guide schools on teaching climate justice.
Some lawmakers said they've heard from school administrators and teachers that it goes too far.
“What was said to me was, 'Why are we pushing a political point of view or a political agenda?'” said Minnesota Rep. Ben Bakeberg, a Republican, in a March 2023 House Education He spoke at a policy committee hearing. “That's the reality.”
The bill was not considered during the 2023 session. Well, this year is no different. Supporters say they will try again next year.
Aware of such opposition, some students concerned about climate change choose to campaign at school without going through the legislative process.
Three years ago, Ariela Lara's mother's village in Oaxaca, Mexico, was destroyed by floods during a visit. Lara then returned home to California, where smoke from wildfires filled the sky, forcing thousands of people to evacuate or remain indoors for weeks.
But despite what she was seeing, Lara felt that her school only taught her about recycling and her carbon footprint, a measure of an individual's greenhouse gas emissions.
So she went to the school board.
“We had to really think about how we could go to the powers that be to actually rewrite the curriculum that we're learning,” Lara said. “That would be really disgusting, because for me, it was me who was trying to force it.”
By the time her school began offering advanced environmental science, Lara was too old to enroll in it. AP Enviro covers climate change, but its scope is broader, according to the College Board.
When targeted efforts don't work, some students feel isolated.
For Siyeon Joo, a high school senior, the climate is a major concern, as her city of Lafayette, Louisiana, was hit hard by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and has been affected by several other severe storms and heat waves. Education seems like a given.
But Zhu wasn't exposed to climate change at her public middle school, and educators there once told her it wasn't real.
“I remember sitting in that classroom,” said the now 16-year-old. “At the time, I was really angry that that was the system that was being forced on me.”
To learn about these subjects, Zhu needed to enroll in a private school. Many students don't have that option.
Experts say climate topics can be incorporated into lessons without putting a strain on schools or putting stress on students. But just like in law, it takes time for students to say, “I don't have time.”
“I was just part of a community that really saw how much we're at risk if we don't take action,” said Lara, a student in California, adding that being educated about her experience was She recalled how important it was to her. She said: “They should be able to go to school and learn about the seriousness of the climate crisis.”
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Alexa St. John reported from Detroit and Doug Glass from St. Paul, Minnesota.
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Alexa St. John is a climate solutions reporter for The Associated Press. Follow her on X (formerly Twitter). @alexa_stjohn. Please contact ast.john@ap.org.
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