For Further Reading
The best discussion of climate change education for the general reader is Katie Worth’s Miseducation: How Climate Change is Taught in America (Columbia Global Reports 2021), a meticulously researched and vividly written discussion of the forces that obstruct climate change education in the United States
Science teachers who want to improve their content knowledge and pedagogical knowhow will benefit from:
• Mark S. McCaffrey’s Climate Smart & Energy Wise (Corwin 2014), which, as the title suggests, also addresses energy education
• Kelley T. Le’s Teaching Climate Change for Grades 6–12 (Routledge 2021), which offers practical and hands-on guidance for teaching climate change as presented in the Next Generation Science Standards
• The Teacher-Friendly Guide to Climate Change (Paleontological Research Institution 2017), edited by Ingrid H. H. Zabel, Don Duggan-Haas, and Robert M. Ross, which provides a comprehensive resource on climate change especially for high school earth science and environmental science teachers
• Mark Windschitl’s A Primer on Climate Change (Harvard Education Press forthcoming 2023) offers a comprehensive vision for climate change teaching centered on the themes of understanding, resilience, and justice
Academic research on climate change education is often difficult to translate for the classroom, but three resources that do so helpfully are:
• Anne K. Armstrong, Marianne E. Krasny, and Jonathon P. Schuldt’s Communicating Climate Change (Cornell University Press 2018), which synthesizes research from environmental psychology, science education, and science communication
• Teaching and Learning about Climate Change (Routledge 2017), edited by Daniel P. Shepardson, Anita Roychoudhury, Andrew S. Hirsch, which aims to aid educators as they strive to incorporate climate change into their classes
• Teaching Climate Change in the United States (Routledge 2020), edited by Joseph Henderson and Andrea Drewes, a collection of case studies of climate change education programs in a wide variety of venues, with a focus on climate action
On the lighter side, and not concentrating on climate change education as such, are:
• John Cook’s Cranky Uncle vs. Climate Change (Citadel 2020), offering explanations in cartoon form of how to understand and respond to climate science deniers—even, as the title suggests, members of your own family
• Grady Klein and Yoram Bauman’s The Cartoon Introduction to Climate Change (revised edition, Island Press 2022), which is exactly what it sounds like