{"id":309383,"date":"2026-07-30T00:38:25","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T00:38:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/309383\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T00:38:25","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T00:38:25","slug":"from-kindergarten-to-college-new-york-is-rethinking-climate-education-state-of-the-planet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/309383\/","title":{"rendered":"From Kindergarten to College, New York Is Rethinking Climate Education \u2013 State of the Planet"},"content":{"rendered":"

Five years ago, a UNESCO study<\/a> of educational policies in 100 countries revealed that nearly half neglected to mention climate change. Even worse, only 23% of teachers felt able to properly address climate action in their classrooms. Yet, in a 2022 study published by the international organization the following year, students overwhelmingly expressed concerns<\/a> about the way climate change was being\u2014or not being\u2014taught, especially since 70% of those surveyed said they didn\u2019t feel they could explain what it is. Among their demands: to understand the human role in nature and how to take concrete actions to protect it; to learn through experiential and reflective ways of learning about sustainability and climate; for diverse aspects of climate change to be taught across subjects; and understand how climate change affects their particular geographic area as well as the world at large.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no wonder students are clamoring for better sustainability and climate instruction. In the United States alone, they\u2019ve witnessed some of the most devastating effects of climate change. Over the past three years, they\u2019ve seen record-breaking heat<\/a> in more than a dozen states; two of the most destructive wildfires in California\u2019s history<\/a>; a blanket of toxic, orange smoke engulf New York City and elsewhere due to massive wildfires in Canada; and an ever-increasing number of severe weather events, all of which have claimed lives and caused billions of dollars\u2019 worth of damage. Last year was the third warmest on record, with 2024 the hottest and 2023 second.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"EmptyCredit: RDNE Stock project via Pexels<\/a><\/p>\n

In the U.S., more than 86 percent of teachers and 84 percent of parents support<\/a> climate change education<\/a> in schools, but only five states have climate or sustainability curricular or instructional requirements for K-12 students. In 2020, New Jersey became the first state to mandate the teaching of climate change across all subjects, from kindergarten to grade 12. Two years later, Connecticut passed a similar requirement, with Oregon following<\/a> in 2025.<\/p>\n

As of this spring, New York State has joined them.<\/p>\n

The New York State of mindful climate education<\/p>\n

This past March, the New York State Board of Regents approved a statewide climate education mandate, placing climate education as an instructional requirement across all content areas, from kindergarten to grade 12. After a phasing-in period, all schools will have to submit verification to the state that as students move through grades K-4, 5-8 and 9-12, they\u2019ve had some sort of climate education instruction that teaches\u00a0the causes, impacts and solutions to climate change.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey allow a lot of flexibility in terms of how it can be implemented, so it could either be through embedded instruction, which can be infused into required courses and subject areas, like science, math, social studies, etc.,\u201d\u00a0says Emily Fano, director of climate education at the National Wildlife Federation, who helped make this requirement a reality. \u201cOr teachers can create a standalone course. It\u2019s all about what schools have time for and what teachers have time to prep. It really also depends on how informed principals and superintendents are.\u201d<\/p>\n

This change comes as part of the state education department (NYSED)\u2019s current revamp of its educational framework. \u201cThey are trying to transform education and make it more project-based, more interdisciplinary,\u201d says Fano. \u201cIt\u2019s a new philosophy of learning, which is more student-centered, more focused on critical thinking and global citizenship. And climate education is part of [that vision].\u201d<\/p>\n

Fano and a group of roughly 200 partner organizations had been working tirelessly over the past several years to get something like this mandate passed. They first tried legislation as the path forward. They got as far as having\u00a0a bill introduced<\/a>\u00a0in the Senate and Assembly, only to watch it linger and die. \u201cSo we decided to partner with the state education department,\u201d says Fano. \u201cAnd in November 2025, the Board of Regents announced that they were proposing this climate education requirement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fano is quick to point out that this \u201cinstructional requirement\u201d is not a curriculum\u2014\u201cthe state does not mandate curricula, nor does it develop them,\u201d she says. \u201cThey leave that up to the districts. Instead, they implement policy.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

She says she\u2019s happy that the state has clearly stated that climate change is \u201cdecided science and not a political issue, so they\u2019re not going to entertain denialism.\u201d Instead, the requirement will explore solutions to the environmental impacts of climate change. Just like the findings of the UNESCO study, students in New York want to know what actionable steps they can take, says Fano.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Though thrilled by this big step forward, Fano says one big disappointment is that the state has not yet allocated funds to support the requirement. \u201cWe had asked the state for $536,000 for the climate education initiative specifically, which is still nothing. It\u2019s the same amount of money that was given to a golf tournament in last year\u2019s budget, so we\u2019re very disappointed,\u201d says Fano. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing like an unfunded mandate for it to fail.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Fano says she and her colleagues will keep pushing forward for funding for teacher training. Resources are also beginning to emerge, including the NYC Midwinter Climate Institute<\/a>, which equips educators with tools and strategies for implementing interdisciplinary climate education.\u201cWe\u2019re pleased that NYSED is going to be working on guidance documents for educators. They\u2019re assembling a working committee of experts in the field that will advise them on creating basically crosswalks for educators,\u201d says Fano. \u201cThat should be out hopefully in the next few months.\u201d<\/p>\n

One campus sets an example<\/p>\n

On Earth Day, April 22, one NYC campus announced a new sustainability update: Barnard College had decided to add a \u201cThinking Ecologically and Sustainably\u201d requirement to its\u00a0Foundations curriculum<\/a>. Although Barnard\u2019s new requirement applies to college students, it reflects the same philosophy guiding New York\u2019s K\u201312 mandate: that preparing students for a changing climate means integrating ecological thinking across subjects.<\/p>\n

As defined by its creators, this addition considers \u201cthe interconnectedness between humans and other living and nonliving things\u2026[and] requires creativity and critical inquiry as we consider past and present narratives, practices, and policies, and develop and express what it means to foster healthy and sustainable communities and ecosystems.\u201d<\/p>\n

It took years of work for the interdisciplinary requirement to get approved, but with over 90 percent of Barnard students already taking sustainability-related or sustainability-focused courses without a requirement, it became clear to the faculty that the time was now to incorporate this mode of thinking into the Foundations curriculum, says Barnard professor of education Mar\u00eda Rivera Maulucci, who is part of the group that spearheaded its creation. \u201cThat was a really important piece of data that helped us know that we were ready to implement this mode,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

At the moment, at least 149 courses at Barnard, across multiple disciplines, can be described as sustainability-related or sustainability-focused, says Rivera Maulucci. The new mode will be implemented with the entering class of 2027, so between now and then, \u201call the courses that will be tagged for the new mode will go through our committee on instruction for approval.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The beauty of this mode of thinking, its proponents say, is its cross-disciplinary nature. \u201cI\u2019m very happy if students move into the climate field, but my actual hope for this mode of thinking is that they take these capacities and these understandings into whatever field they go into,\u201d says\u00a0Sandra Goldmark, associate dean for engagement and impact at Columbia Climate School and formerly a professor at Barnard. \u201cWe want our entire workforce to be able to engage thoughtfully with these questions, not just a few climate experts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like students around the globe, young people at Barnard are hungry for this knowledge. \u201cOne of the other pieces of data we looked at was what percentage of students in a particular major had [already] satisfied this mode,\u201d says Rivera Maulucci. \u201cWith our 2026 grads, we found that 100% of Africana studies majors had done so, 100% of American studies, 100% of art history, 80% of Asian studies\u2026 you can go down the list, but all these high percentages show that students are finding ways to explore sustainability either inside or outside their majors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Goldmark and Rivera Maulucci think the inclusion of this new requirement will also act as an incentive for faculty to level up their own approach to teaching. \u201cWhen we introduced the \u2018Thinking Technologically and Digitally<\/a>\u2019 requirement at Barnard, I thought, let me make sure I\u2019m teaching this right, let me give it a little bit more attention. So it helped me raise my game in that area,\u201d says Goldmark.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As a parent of two NYC high schoolers, Goldmark is particularly thrilled to see both the state\u2019s climate education mandate and the Barnard requirement passed this year. \u201cI feel like it\u2019s my job to try and equip these kids for what they\u2019re going to face when they leave our campus, and I am 110% certain that the ability to think ecologically and sustainably and make decisions that take into account climate, Earth and society is a skill that we can teach and must be\u00a0teaching for students of all ages.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Five years ago, a UNESCO study of educational policies in 100 countries revealed that nearly half neglected to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":309384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10,49,51,50],"class_list":["post-309383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}