NCSE is pleased to announce the publication of Climate Smart & Energy Wise (Corwin Press, 2014), written by NCSE's Mark McCaffrey. In their foreword, Eugenie C. Scott and Jay Labov write, "Climate Smart & Energy Wise provides a roadmap to teachers to assist them in acquiring the background and resources to bring climate and energy education into their classrooms ... It provides a wealth of information to help teachers find resources, including the very useful Climate Literacy and Energy Literacy frameworks, developed by scientists and master teachers. This book is packed with suggestions for where a teacher can find more information and classroom guidance for the teaching of global climate change."
Describing Climate Smart & Energy Wise, the publisher writes:
The twenty-first century ushered in a set of unmistakably urgent global challenges that are too important to be an afterthought in today's classrooms. Just in time, here's a resource to improve your students' understanding of the intersection of science and social policy by making climate and energy literacy the centerpiece of your curriculum.
What recommends Climate Smart & Energy Change in particular? That there's no more informed expert on the subject than Mark McCaffrey. His book offers a virtual blueprint to climate and energy education, packed with resources and strategies, including:
- A high-level overview of where climate and energy topics fit (or don't fit) in to your current curriculum
- A discussion of the new Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and how you can meet them with well-planned pedagogical strategies
- Proven methods to teach climate change and related topics in a grade-appropriate way
- Sample learning activities and high-quality online resources from the Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN)
Students, educators, and parents must pool their diverse skills and abilities to ensure our schools produce graduates that are able to respond to the global imperative facing us all. Climate Smart & Energy Wise is the key to making a better future our reality.
A sample (chapter 7: "Countering Skepticism, Denial, and Despair") is available (PDF) on NCSE's website, and McCaffrey contributed a series of blog posts describing the chapters of the book to NCSE's blog.