Learning from Teaching Graduate Students How to Design Climate Change Education Programs

This chapter discusses lessons learned engaging my graduate students in education policy analysis at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in designing climate change education curricula in partnership with educational institutions around the world. Studying those programs developed by my students, I draw out seven cross-cutting themes about what such an approach yields for students, for the educational institutions they partnered with and for my own institution, while drawing parallels between those curricula and the graduate course in comparative education policy analysis in which these curricula were developed. In addressing those themes the chapter revisits some of the central arguments presented in the introductory chapter about the urgency and the challenges of enhancing the effectiveness of climate change education, and some of the key conclusions of critical reviews of the literature on education and climate change about the limitation of existing approaches to the subject. Those themes are: Educating students to address climate change is about engaging them in active problem solving, not contemplation. While learning from doing is valuable, to advance the field of climate change education, it is necessary to conceptualize and theorize practice. The need to think broadly about learning outcomes in climate change education. The power of contextually situated learning. A Signature project-based pedagogy to Change Climate through Education. Augmenting the capacity for climate change education among teachers and schools. The limitations of infusing climate change education in existing courses. The chapter concludes examining some blind spots in the climate change curricula presented in the book and drawing parallels between the education response to the COVID-19 Pandemic of 2020 and the education response to Climate Change.