Climate Change Curriculum
Curriculum resources for faculty in different disciplines
Climate Change Curriculum
This guide compiles curriculum resources for integrating climate change into courses across the disciplines. Some of the resources were created by PCC instructors, while most come from national or international networks of climate educators. An extensive list of web resources is below on this page. Find specific topics or types of resources from the navigation tabs to the left or from these links:
- PCC pathways curriculum - resources created by PCC instructors and staff
- Affective resources - activities and guidance for emotionally-responsive climate education
- Climate justice - curriculum resources with an equity focus
- Humanities - resources for the arts, literature and other humanities disciplines
- K-12 resources - extensive compilations of resources targeted at the K-12 level which may have use in higher education
- Pedagogy - strategies for teaching climate change
- Science- curriculum focused on the physical, biological and technological aspects of climate change
- Solutions - curriculum resources for mitigating the crisis
- Video resources - media available online or through PCC library
Because of the interdisciplinary nature of the subject, some resources may be listed in multiple places.
This guide was created as part of a professional leave project by librarian Roberta Richards in Spring 2021. See also these guides:
- Teaching Climate Change in the Community College - resources to prepare for the cognitive, political and emotional complexities of teaching climate change
- Climate Change - a student facing research guide
Climate change curriculum databases
- Existential Toolkit for Climate Justice EducatorsResources contributed by an international community of scholars, educators and climate justice leaders who are exploring the emotional impact of climate disruption. Includes activities, media resources, syllabi and readings, organized into the broad themes of reflection, resiliency and justice.
- Faculty for a Future - Seed Library"Faculty for a Future helps academics who feel a duty of care over Earth’s colliding crises to transform research, teaching, and public engagement towards the pursuit of a better future." Faculty for a Future's Seed Library is a searchable database of open-access educational resources that can support educators and students.
- Curriculum for the BioregionFrom Washington State University, a broad range of curriculum resources for higher education on sustainability themes, including climate change.
- UC-CSU NXTerra - California’s New Climate Emergency Teaching ToolA resource for college teachers from across all disciplines and anyone seeking to enhance their teaching and learning about the climate crisis, critical sustainability, and climate justice studies, both inside and outside the classroom. Includes videos, syllabi, activities and other educational resources, on a broad range of climate-related topics.
Resources for Teaching About Climate Change With The New York Times
PCC students and faculty have full access to the New York Times online through PCC Library. Getting Started with the New York Times Online
Access lesson plans, videos and other teaching materials: Resources for Teaching About Climate Change with the New York TImes
PCC 2021 Climate Action Plan video guide for faculty (7:33 minutes)
Learn about the 2021 PCC Climate Action plan in this short video for faculty, produced by Briar Schoon, PCC Sustainability Manager, and Stephania Fregosi, PCC Sustainability Analyst. PCC 2021 Climate Action Plan (faculty)
A shorter version of this video created for students is also available. PCC 2021 Climate Action Plan (students) (6:44 minutes)..
Web resources (most of which are cross listed in relevant sections)
- "Dear _": Writing Our Way Beyond Doom and Gloom78 page online anthology collecting letters focused on conservation success stories. Organized by Elin Kelsey and the Rachel Carson Center
- All We Can Save: Truth Courage and Solutions for the Climate Crisis (resources for educators)Resources for educators to use the All We Can Save anthology in the classroom.
- Arts & Climate University CoursesCompiled by the Artists & Climate Change project
- Beyond Doom and Gloom: Climate SolutionsFrom AASHE - The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education. "To support faculty in teaching students about how they can contribute to a clean energy future, we have developed a short video, powerpoint slides and optional short assignments that you can use in your courses."
- Changemakers - the Shore Line Documentary ProjectInspiring short films about people from nine countries who are dealing with storms, flooding and polluting energy. Includes suggested activities.
- CLEAN - Committed to Climate and Energy Education"Teaching about Climate and Energy? Our team of educators and scientists has reviewed and organized the best free teaching resources for K-12 through college." CLEAN is funded by grants from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and NASA.
- Climate Change Across Disciplines: A Liberal Arts ApproachFrom Bowdoin College. Includes links to syllabi.
- Climate Emergency: Feedback LoopsThis series of five short films shows why natural warming loops have scientists alarmed—and why we have less time than we think. Narrated by Richard Gere.
- Climate Interactive En-ROADS guided assignmentUses the En-ROADS simulator to create a scenario that successfully addresses climate change while considering implications across the economy, environment, and society.
- Climate Toolkit: A Resource Manual for Science and ActionAn OER resource from Frank Granshaw at Portland State University. "The Climate Toolkit is a resource manual designed to help the reader navigate the complex and perplexing issue of climate change by providing tools and strategies to explore the underlying science." Designed for undergraduate non-science majors. Includes editable files. 2020.
- Climate Visuals"The world's only evidence-based and impact focused climate photography resource."
- Community Resilience to Climate Change: Theory, Research and PracticeAn OER text from Dana Hellman and Vivek Shandas at Portland State University. The material is geared toward upper-level undergraduate or graduate students in urban and regional planning, and may also be of interest to students of urban studies, public health, geography, political science, sociology, risk management, and others.
- COP Educator ToolkitPrepared by ClimateGeneration to align with the COP 26 convention
- Curriculum for the BioregionFrom Washington State University, a broad range of curriculum resources for higher education on sustainability themes, including climate change.
- Dragonfly.ecoA database of books and resources about eco-fiction.
- Education for sustainable development for 2030 ToolboxUNESCO toolbox of resources for Advancing Policy, Transforming Learning Environments, Building Capacity of Educators, Empowering and Mobilizing Youth, and Accelerating Local Level Actions.
- Existential Toolkit for Climate Justice EducatorsResources contributed by an international community of scholars, educators and climate justice leaders who are exploring the emotional impact of climate disruption. Includes activities, media resources, syllabi and readings, organized into the broad themes of reflection, resiliency and justice.
- Faculty for a Future -- Seed LibraryA searchable database of open access educational resources designed to help university educators and students of any discipline develop ways of understanding, coping with, and confronting colliding environmental and social crises, as well as transforming the structures that cause or perpetuate them.
- Five environmental films to watch on Earth DayFrom Al Jazeera. Links to "Rewilding Patagonia"; "Forest Free Fashion"; "Jordan's Water Wise Women"; "Cameroon's Bottle Boats"; and "Sustainable Island"
- NOAA Planet Stewards - The WatchThe Watch is a twice monthly educator e-newsletter containing curated opportunities from NOAA and NOAA partners for educators and students including webinars, workshops, and contests. There are links to educational resources and activities, conferences and reports, as well as education and science news items and information on grants, internships and jobs.
- Playful Climate ActionResources compiled by Casey Meehan. "We use playfulness to engage in the Serious Business of
climate work." - Resources for Teaching Climate Change Across the CurriculumOER Resource from Wally Shriner at Mt. Hood Community College. Includes discipline specific approaches and examples for Humanities, Social Sciences, Business and Economics, Science, and Nursing, Health and Wellness.
- RHRN Educator’s Guide, Global Climate SummitIncludes curriculum resources around three themes: Impacts: Understanding the Vulnerabilities of Climate Change; Obligations: Who Is Responsible?; and Solutions: Human Rights-Based Climate Solutions
- Solve Climate By 2030Annual worldwide teach-in on climate solutions and justice, March 29, 2023.
- Stanford University Climate Change Education High School Curriculum"Students will be able to identify the relevance of studying climate change and differentiate between elements of weather and climate." Includes documents, presentations and videos. Middle School curriculum also available.
- TALKOUTSIDE - Environmental Communication Lab at Eckerd CollegeAssignments and student projects for classes in Environmental Communication and Climate Change Communication.
- Teach Climate Justice CampaignFrom the Zinn Education Project. Includes classroom-tested lessons, workshops for educators, and a sample school board climate justice resolution.
- The Teacher Friendly Guide to Climate ChangeIncludes a clear and comprehensive discussion of the science of climate change, as well as understanding the cognitive biases that lead to resisting this science. Provides an extremely helpful FAQ about how to answer the most common challenges to anthropogenic climate change. From the Paleontological Research Institution, 2017. 294 page pdf.
- Teaching About Climate ChangeFrom Radical Teacher - A Socialist, Feminist, and Anti-Racist Journal on the Theory and Practice of Teaching. 2015
- Teaching Climate Change in English Language ArtsFrom the National Council of Teachers of English, 2016. Includes bibliography of recommended novels and resources.
- Think ResilienceThink Resilience is an online course about responding to our sustainability crises by building community resilience. It consists of four hours of video lectures exploring the interrelated crises of the 21st century—from climate change to economics to social injustice—and how we as citizens, students, and community leaders can respond to them with local resilience-building actions. From the Post Carbon Institute
- Toolbox for Teaching Climate & Energy"NOAA Climate.gov and a community of educational and science partners have developed and organized supporting resources and programs for those who want to teach climate and energy science." Includes a toolbox of resources from teaching professionals and science partners.
- UC-CSE NXTerra - California’s New Climate Emergency Teaching ToolA resource for college teachers from across all disciplines and anyone seeking to enhance their teaching and learning about the climate crisis, critical sustainability, and climate justice studies, both inside and outside the classroom. Includes videos, syllabi, activities and other educational resources, on a broad range of climate-related topics.
- Vent diagramsTool for holding "contradicting truths towards collective liberation."
- World Climate SimulationThe World Climate Simulation, from Climate Interactive is an in-person role-playing exercise of the UN climate change negotiations. Through the simulation, participants get to explore the necessary speed and level of action that nations must take to address global climate change.
- The Year You Finally Read a Book About Climate ChangeBook recommendations from the New York Times. 2020
- “Talking About Climate” - Short Plays Ready to Perform at Your SchoolThree award-winning short plays, providing unique viewpoints and perspectives to the climate crisis, offering educational, comical, and dramatic storytelling.
Books
Teaching Climate Change in the HumanitiesCall Number: EbookPublication Date: 2016Excellent anthology. Includes detailed descriptions of the curriculum in classes including literature, arts, film, philosophy and more.
Communicating Climate Change: A Guide for EducatorsCall Number: Cascade and Sylvania Libraries 363.738/74071073Publication Date: 2018"This book provides environmental educators with an understanding of how their audiences engage with climate change information as well as with concrete, empirically tested communication tools they can use to enhance their climate change program"
Climate Change Across the Curriculum"Climate Change across the Curriculum examines ways of thinking and conveying information about climate change across university curricula and within academic disciplines." 2016
Earth in Mind: on education, environment, and the human prospect by Call Number: Cascade Main Collection 363.7 O77e 1994Much of what has gone wrong with the world, the author argues, is the result of inadequate and misdirected education that alienates us from life in the name of human domination; causes students to worry about how to make a living before they know who they are; overemphasizes success and careers; separates feeling from intellect and the practical from the theoretical and deadens the sense of wonder for the created world.
Teaching teens about climate change by Call Number: Cascade Main Collection 551.5253 T43 2017"Take teens from despair to empowerment, help them appreciate the difference between cap and trade and carbon taxes, explore environmental impacts of the tar sands, provide options for sustainable transportation, and much more."
Universities on Fire : higher education in the climate crisis by Call Number: Sylvania Library 363.738 A43u 2023"By connecting climate research to a deep, futures-informed analysis of academia, Universities on Fire explores how climate change will fundamentally reshape higher education"
- Nine climate change books for educatorsFrom Yale Climate Connections: "These teacher-friendly books address the theory and practice of climate change education." 2019
- Education and Climate Change - The Role of UniversitiesOpen access book by Fernando Reimers (Harvard Graduate School of Education and UNESCO), published 2021. Outlines from a global persepctive the pedagogical requirements of effective climate change education, and the role of universities in developing the needed framework. "The breadth of skills identified in these various frameworks underscores the importance of addressing more than knowledge of facts about climate change in order to prepare students to translate knowledge into action. The capacity to engage students in such deeper learning requires high level of skills from teachers, and a well developed curriculum, in order to not only engage their students in high cognitive activation tasks, but also to develop the socio-emotional competencies that undergird agency and the capacity to take responsibility for climate change and to collaborate with others productively in addressing it"
- Climate Change in Practice: topics for discussion with group exercisesPCC Library ebook, published in 2017. "Derived from an undergraduate course taught by the author, this accessible book seeks to challenge and provoke readers by posing a series of topical questions concerning climate change and society.... With a focus on applying climate science in practice, this book is ideal for students of geography, natural science, engineering and economics, as well as practitioners involved in the climate service industry."