“New York’s Board of Regents approved a Department of Education funding request for climate education,” reported Public News Service (December 23, 2024).
If the funding is included in the state budget for 2025-2026, $536,500 would be allocated to support the development of guidance documents to help educators integrate climate education into existing standards across grades and disciplines as well as to fund a staffer to support school decarbonization projects across districts.
The request was developed in collaboration with the Climate and Resilience Education Task Force, a project of the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), and its volunteers, students, educators, and partners. NWF’s Emily Fano told NCSE, “If the governor approves this appropriation request in her budget, teachers will finally be provided with a framework for teaching climate change at every grade level and in every subject,” adding, “This would put the state in a lead position in the nation on cross-curricular climate education requirements.”
The request would just be a start on improving climate change education in New York, Fano emphasized. “We’ll need far more resources going forward for a proper rollout of these new climate resources to over 800 districts, especially for both pre-service and in-service teacher training. A majority of teachers want to teach about climate but don’t have the proper training.”
“The grown-ups who are responsible for educating our students are finally listening to our kids,” Fano concluded. “They have been asking us to do this for quite some time.”
Glenn Branch is Deputy Director of NCSE.
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