Humans can take actions to reduce climate change and its impacts.

Humans cause climate change, and humans can address climate change too.

Climate change can be a tough topic to teach. But talking about the solutions can bring a hopeful message to the classroom and empower students. It's essential that students understand the types of actions we can take and the scale at which these changes are necessary. Humans need to reduce emissions of heat-trapping gases, while also preparing for impacts, planning for resilient communities, and protecting the ecosystems that sustain us. Addressing climate change will be a monumental challenge, and no doubt some of today's students will be instrumental in designing and implementing future solutions.

It is vital that students understand solutions

Actions to address climate change are already happening all around us. The multifaceted nature of solutions and adaptations offers many avenues for exploring these topics in the classroom.

• Solutions need to address the large-scale and urgent timeline of the problem. The most effective solutions are those that can reduce a lot of emissions, and ideally, these solutions can be deployed quickly.
• Types of actions to reduce climate change can take many forms, such as emissions avoidance, land-use changes, or sequestration of greenhouse gases.
• The scale of actions can range from an individual to a community, to a nation, or a grouping of nations. Be sure to emphasize scale; small-scale actions are insufficient to solve the problem.
• Climate and energy policies are currently being crafted by various nations and communities.
• All citizens, including students, can provide input into new policies; the resulting policies are likely to have an effect on all of us.
• Actions are not always driven by policy. Some corporations are taking actions to address climate change even without being required to do so.
• Actions can be spurred by policy, economic incentives, a sense of environmental or social responsibility, or a combination of each of these.

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Helping students understand these ideas

The climate and energy challenges that society must address in the coming years and decades can be overwhelming for many learners. The scientific findings of global change research can be alarming and discouraging even for seasoned scientists. Many students, even before they fully master the science, will want to know what they can do to make a difference. Teachers are finding that weaving together science with solutions is an important strategy to avoid depressing their students. For more on climate change and mental health, see the CLEAN Climate Mental Health pages.

The enormous challenge of addressing climate change cannot be overestimated. "Easy solutions" to reduce our personal impact on Earth's climate, such as switching to efficient light bulbs, offer an excellent starting point when addressing energy use. However, real change will only happen with significant shifts in how we generate and use energy (example activity: Stabilization Wedges Game). Solutions always need to be evaluated in terms of their ability to scale up and be implemented in a meaningful and practical way. Educators can leverage the knowledge, values, and experiences of their students to keep them inspired and challenged.

Solutions are frequently interdisciplinary and span science, engineering, economics, and policy. Examining the realities of integrating solutions into our society are potent ways to teach these topics. That said, educators should exercise care with policy discussions and avoid political debates that can distract from the main goal of mastering the content.

Ultimately, if students understand the systems involved in climate change, they will be able to evaluate choices on the basis of multiple factors and can weigh advantages and tradeoffs. This type of critical thinking is essential for making informed decisions and solving complex problems - skills that all students will need as engaged citizens.

Bringing these ideas into your classroom

Our responses to climate change touch on many disciplines: earth science, biology, human health, engineering, technology, economics, and policy. Thus there are many places in the curriculum into which these topics can be woven. Students can engage in projects that focus on their own communities or on international case studies. Topics can involve lifestyle changes, innovative solutions, emerging technology, or policy negotiations. Subject areas can include energy, transportation, food, agriculture, commerce, or land use.

A pedagogic technique that is particularly effective is to have students take a quantitative approach to discover the scale of the problem and thus the scale of potential solutions. For example, how many light bulbs would need to be changed in order to offset rising carbon emissions? Is it possible to plant enough trees to soak up excess CO₂? (See activity Atmospheric Carbon: Can We Offset the Increase? ) Often the best way for students to reach an understanding is to engage them in a problem-solving activity that allows them to discover answers for themselves.

Teaching materials from the CLEAN collection

More than many other aspects of climate literacy, many of these activities span several grade levels

Middle school

• Take Action - This video provides a call to action by using interviews with young activists about how they have decided to contribute to climate solutions. This includes things such as reducing meat consumption, biking instead of driving, and talking about personal perspectives on climate change.
• Plant for the Planet offers an upbeat example of a young student who rallies his community and other children to plant millions of trees to offset emissions.
• Project Resilience: Resilience in Action - In this activity, students explore resilience toolkits to better understand their value. Students then draw upon these toolkits to design a resilience plan for their school campus as the culminating task of the larger Project Resilience.
• In the Renewable Energy Living Lab: Energy Priorities, students explore real data about renewable energy potential in their state using a mapping tool developed by National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
• Climate Mental Health: You Are a Climate Leader - In this lesson, students will read brief biographies of youth climate activists and then reflect on how they can take climate action in their own lives.

High school

• There are several lesson plans that incorporate a renewable energy mapping tool from the National Renewable Energy Labs, called Renewable Energy Living Lab. These lessons evaluate the feasibility, cost, and environmental impacts of installing renewable energy, and they are a way to bring engineering and design into the subject.
• Climate Action Simulation - This interactive role-playing simulation is conducted as a simulated emergency climate summit organized by the United Nations that convenes global stakeholders to establish a concrete plan that limits warming to Paris Agreement goals. This game is a fun format for large groups to explore climate change solutions and see what it would really take to address this global challenge.
• Solving the Carbon Dioxide Problem - Students use information from Project Drawdown to learn about the sectors where climate solutions are being implemented to help slow down climate warming. Students construct a plan for using specific solutions to reduce and remove the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and make a claim describing how their plan could work to keep global temperature change below 1.5 °C.
• The Energy Lab is a simulator that allows students to meet projected energy demand while also minimizing atmospheric CO₂.
• Four Generations of Green offers a vignette of a family dairy that infuses sustainable practices throughout its operation.

College

• The Lifestyle Project is a widely-used conservation project that allows students to examine their resource use and make changes to their consumption patterns.
• In the Greenhouse Emissions Reduction Role-Play Exercise students take the roles of politicians, scientists, environmentalists, and industry representatives working on legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.
• Similar activities use an international approach to emissions reduction: Simulation of international negotiations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and World Climate: Climate Change Negotiations Game.
• China's role in global energy use is rapidly changing, as they are becoming the global leader in renewable energy. Educators would need to seek up-to-date figures, but this video can help set the stage for the topic: China: In with the New.
• Adapting to a Changing World explores public opinions on climate change and identifies strategies to mitigate or adapt to climate change.