About the CLEAN Project

Accurate education about climate and energy topics has never been more important, and it can be challenging to locate reliable, vetted educational materials to use in your classroom. CLEAN is here to help you find the resources that you need, without wondering about their scientific credibility or educational value.

The Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN) Portal was launched in 2010 as a National Science Digital Library (NSDL) Pathways project. It is led by the science education expertise of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Science (CIRES) at the University of Colorado Boulder and the Science Education Resource Center (SERC) at Carleton College. As of 2012, CLEAN has been syndicated to NOAA's climate.gov portal.

CLEAN's primary effort is to steward the collection of climate and energy science educational resources and to support a community of professionals committed to improving climate and energy literacy.

CLEAN has been recognized by the Webby Awards, the National Center for Science Education, and the Goldin Foundation.



The three key components of the CLEAN project are:

  1. The CLEAN Collection of Climate and Energy Science resources- high-quality, digital resources---including learning activities, visualizations, videos, and short demonstrations/experiments---geared toward educators of students in secondary through undergraduate levels.
  2. Educator Support pages designed to help educators understand the big ideas in climate and energy science, and support them in implementing climate and energy topics into their teaching.
  3. The CLEAN Network is a community of professionals committed to improving climate and energy literacy.

About the CLEAN Collection

Learn more about CLEAN from this short video.

The CLEAN Collection is a high-quality and rigorously reviewed collection of climate and energy educational resources aligned with the Climate Literacy and the Energy Literacy frameworks, and the Next Generation Science Standards. Through the peer-review process, scientists and educators ensure scientific accuracy, pedagogic effectiveness, and classroom readiness for each resource. The CLEAN collection contains ~1,000 educational resources that are free, online, peer-reviewed, NGSS aligned, and ready-to-use for teaching about climate and energy including lesson plans, activities, lab demonstrations, visualizations, and videos, which are easily searchable through various tags. Our review process provides information about each resource which is included on the resource catalog page.

The CLEAN collection is syndicated to NOAA's climate.gov portal and OER Commons.

Meet the CLEAN Team

CLEAN Acknowledgements

CLEAN recognizes the disproportionate impact climate change has on frontline communities and the importance of incorporating social and environmental justice into climate education. We have partnered with organizations to incorporate more culturally relevant resources into our collection and educator support section. We will continue to elevate the voices of those most impacted by climate change.

CLEAN Funding

CLEAN is funded by grants from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NA14OAR0110121, NA14OAR0110120, NA12OAR4310143, NA12OAR4310142, NA17OAR4320101, NA22OAR4320151), the National Science Foundation (DUE-0938051, DUE-0938020, DUE-0937941), the Department of Energy, and NASA (80NSSC19K1696) and contracts from Harmonic (AWD 23-09-0011, OCG6464B, OCG6304B). Disclaimer: Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this website are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or the Department of Energy.

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