Climate Change Resources for Teachers (for Workshop 10/10/15):
Just a smattering of what’s out there…
http://www.coolcalifornia.org/article/climate-change-curriculum , provided by the California Air Resources board, provides many links for lesson plans and educator tools. This is the link for the classroom activities page, which is a different page from the curriculum page. http://www.coolcalifornia.org/article/getting-kids-involved
https://acespace.org Alliance for Climate Education; they provide an assembly and other curriculum resources. Apparently, they are already partnered with SFUSD.
http://ncse.com/climate/teaching This is the Website of the “National Center for Science Education: Defending the Teaching of Evolution & Climate Science”.
They provide detailed materials on best practices to teach Climate Change to students, including addressing doubt and denial, and making it relevant.
http://www.climatechangeeducation.org “Web Portal to: K-12 School Lesson Plans, Curriculum and Materials” This site catalogs lesson plans and resources for all the major academic subjects and all grade levels.
http://climatekids.nasa.gov This website is from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The portal itself is very kid-friendly and colorful, with games and animations. The page for teachers, climatekids.nasa.gov/menu/teach/ provides many helpful links, including a list of content that aligns with Next Generation Science Standards. I also like this link because the material is from the government; I think people trust NASA as a source.
www.cooltheearth.org “Cool The Earth is a free, ready-to-run climate change assembly program that educates K-8 students and their families about climate change and inspires them to take simple actions to reduce their carbon emissions.” Their website also lists great resources for teachers, parents, and students. They are based in Marin County, CA.
http://environment.yale.edu/climate-communication/ The Yale Project on Climate Change Communication shares research on what people know, think, and feel about climate change, and effective ways to communicate about it. They list a report specifically about “American Teens’ Knowledge of Climate Change” . I really like their report on “Global Warming’s Six Americas—six unique audiences segments that view and respond to the issue in distinct ways”. They list specific ways to address each audience. They provide an online quiz to find out which group you fall in. They also provide an empowering page of action suggestions, “What Can I Do?”.
Local (San Francisco Bay Area):
http://www.ecocenterhhp.org The Eco-Center at Heron’s Head Park, located in Bayview Hunters Point held this Science Saturday event in September: “Understanding Climate Change: Global Causes, Local Solutions”. Rumor has it that they will soon be providing climate change lessons for teachers at their school site; they will let me know if and when this develops and I can pass that along to you. Or you can email pia@bay.org with inquiries.
The San Francisco Public Library of course! I met this children’s librarian at Bernal Heights Branch, who is very interested in green literature and activities. Most of the books I brought today were from this branch. She is willing to support your planning. paula.heaney@sfpl.org, 415-355-5663. I have several flyers for today from the “Green Teen Books” collection of the SFPL.
I played a video today from http://rosefdn.org/video/leadership-academy The Climate Justice Youth Leadership Academy, sponsored by the Rose Foundation. A similar training is provided by San Francisco based Greenaction: http://greenaction.org
San Francisco Unified School District has some interesting resources.http://greenthenextgen.org/about/ I’m especially intrigued by the listing of grants available. The person they list as being the Eco-literacy specialist has moved to Denver this year, so I’m not sure what’s happening on this front right now.
Activism:
So many groups, here are a few:
Climate Reality Project https://www.climaterealityproject.org
nanfoster.com/global warming 