NCSE Science Education Specialist Blake Touchet participated in a webinar on "Climate, Censorship, and Culture Wars: An International Conversation on Climate Education in a Time of Global Backlash," sponsored by Worldwide Climate Justice Education Week and Black Mountains College. The webinar is available online; Touchet's presentation starts around 8:40.
Touchet began by giving an overview of K-12 climate education in the US, summarizing recent studies conducted by NCSE that assess how well state science standards are addressing the concept of climate change and what climate change instruction (PDF) looks like in the classroom. He closed by discussing pressures that teachers experience to include or exclude climate change instruction in their classrooms and how teachers can prepare students to identify and resolve climate misinformation and disinformation presented in the media.
The goal of this webinar was to give a snapshot of the challenges and opportunities faced by educators and students and to provide advice on what stakeholders can do to advocate for climate education and action.The other panelist, James Dyke, approached the discussion from the point of view of university students and faculty in the United Kingdom. A professor of Earth Systems Science at the University of Exeter, Dyke addressed what the role of the university is in supporting or censoring activism efforts on campus.
Blake Touchet is a Science Education Specialist with NCSE's Supporting Teachers program.