The Nueva School's Innovative Learning Conference

Today's youth are leading the movement for climate justice, yet our education system fails to deliver on the great challenge of our time.  Climate change, if taught at all, is still too often framed as a scientific problem (rather than a political one), as an environmental problem (rather than an all-encompassing humanitarian injustice), and as a distant problem in both time and space (rather than an immediate lived reality).  Solutions are too often given as changing lightbulbs, rather than the necessary systemic restructuring of the global economy.  I will speak about my experience as a climate scientist-turned-educator and what I've learned about inspiring students to tackle this great challenge.  I believe that climate educators' delivery must be honest, definite, impassioned, and empowering.  Students can handle the truth about the gravity of what we face, the forces keeping us mired in the status quo, and what we must do to break out.  Educators must learn to do the same.