New Jersey Schools Get Climate Education In Your Peanut Butter, Or At Least In Kids' Hydroponic Lettuce

The kids aren't just all right. The kids are wonderful.

It's entirely understandable that thinking about climate change can be incredibly depressing. There's so much that should have been done sooner, and the crisis has gotten so much worse than it would have been if the world had taken action 30 or 40 years ago. We're finally doing some of what's going to be needed to prevent the absolute worst of the worst case scenarios from happening, probably, as David Wallace-Wells wrote last fall ( New York Times gift link), but the job is so much more urgent and we're long past the point where everything could have been just fine. But nearly every time I write about climate, I'm also impressed that there are so many extremely smart people doing extremely cool things that will genuinely help the world transition to clean energy and keep the planet more or less habitable for big dumb mammals like humans and even writers of Twilight fan fiction.

Now, if you're teaching about climate science to elementary school kids, you don't want to bum them out and make them lose hope, in part because that's what middle school is for, but mostly because it's not going to get them enthusiastic about learning . Which is why we were so delighted by this New York Times article (another gift link) about creative things teachers in New Jersey are doing to fulfill the state's mandate that climate education be included in every grade. The goal is to get kids thinking about problem-solving and understanding that what humans do affects the world around them — in good ways, too:

Tammy Murphy, the wife of Governor Phil Murphy, a Democrat, was the driving force behind the new standards. She said climate change education was vital to help students attune to the planet’s health, prepare for a new economy based on green energy and adapt to climate shifts that promise to intensify as this generation of children reaches adulthood.

But the state’s method of teaching its youngest learners about climate change arguably does something more profound: Instead of focusing on the doom and gloom, the standards are designed to help children connect with what’s going on in the natural world around them, and, crucially, learn how to solve problems.

In a lovely introduction, we see a class of first-graders brainstorming ideas about what might be done to help penguins in Antarctica adapt to a warming continent. The kids are very into it, suggesting things like helping the penguins migrate someplace colder, or giving them floaties, or maybe offering to let some penguins live in the kids' refrigerator. And by golly, the kids really do give it serious thought, like the little science fiends small humans can be:

One boy said the birds could cool off in the water, but reconsidered after remembering all the hungry orcas awaiting them there.

Now, obviously, none of these measures is going to be adopted by the UN's Ministry for the Future, especially since it's as fictional as the penguin-filled Frigidaire. But the goal is to promote inventive thinking and to get kids engaged in science. In another more real demonstration, the first graders' teacher, Michelle Liwacz, is growing hydroponic lettuce and spinach in the classroom, which the kids will have for a nice green salad. Here's a tweet from the school's principal, Jeanne Muzi, who also gets a mention in the Times story.

“Looks like our first graders will be harvesting more spinach & lettuce soon! #TogetherWeCan #hydroponics @ForkFarms @SlackwoodSchool”

— Jeanne Muzi (@Jeanne Muzi) 1684801044 

Currently, the Times reports, New Jersey requires that climate be taught in

seven out of nine subject areas, including social studies and world languages. The board is expected to vote this summer on whether to require that climate change be expanded to the two remaining subject areas, English language arts and math.

And that's all to the good, considering that climate change is going to be a part of all our lives going forward. Yes, some grumpy climate denialists are unhappy about the idea, because learning anything at all is "indoctrination," but the heck with them, they're not simply wrong, they're also not representative of New Jerseyans in general, 70 percent of whom said in a recent poll that they support climate education. National polling also shows overwhelming support for climate education. 

The really important thing, says elementary science education professor Lauren Madden of the College of New Jersey, is to help kids learn about climate change in a way that's empowering for them, which means not putting it off until they're older:

“When we shield them from so much, they’re not ready to unpack it when they learn about it, and it becomes more scary than when they understand they’re in a position where they can actively think about solutions,” Dr. Madden said. “When you take kids seriously that way, and trust them with that information, you can allow them to feel empowered to make locally relevant solutions.”

The curriculum even includes very simple lessons for kindergarteners, who learn that everything is connected, like pollinating insects and the food we eat, or even, in a lesson the first graders clearly loved, how to think about cause and effect: Sharks seem scary, but if they disappeared, one little girl exclaimed, other fish would go hungry because many fish eat shark poop! 

And by Crom, if learning about fish that eat shark poop gets kids thinking about the world and their place in it, we should all be excited that kids are learning about shark poop.

 It's such a good story. Go read the whole thing! 

And don't forget to join us this afternoon for the fifth installment of our Wonkette Book Club; we're about three quarters of the way through Kim Stanley Robinson's epic 2020 climate novel  The Ministry for the Future , and — not really a spoiler — the War for Planet Earth is finally going in some cautiously optimistic directions. We'll be back with that in a bit, so be ready to join the conversation, yes even if you haven't done the reading, because damn it, the news is grim but there's also a lot to be hopeful about.

Oh, and be sure to let the penguins out of the fridge now and then. They need the exercise.

[ New York Times (gift link) / NYT (also gift link) / Photo:  Ted Eytan, Creative Commons License 2.0 ]

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