The Greening Movement: Climate Education
By Olivia Parrott
Published: in the UIowa Press edition of Ecopolis Iowa City: Creating a Regenerative City in the Heartland
About: Jeff Biggers of the University of Iowa was editing a book for the UIowa Press titled Ecopolis Iowa City: Creating a Regenerative City in the Heartland which explored sustainability endeavors in Iowa City. He contacted me, wanting my permission to include my piece “The Greening Movement” in the book. I added a few paragraphs of my opinion to the previously unbiased news article to fit the style of the book.
I am a senior at City High school, and I plan to study environmental studies at Lake Forest College. Throughout high school I’ve reported for The Little Hawk City High student newspaper, in addition to running cross country and track. I first approached the study of the environment from an article I wrote for The Little Hawk about Iowa’s water quality issues, and I have since become interested in the psychological and political aspects of this interdisciplinary field of study.
Climate change is important because its effects permeate every aspect of life on earth. What humankind has generally forgotten is that the earth is home, and that what humans do with it makes a difference.
While it is true that climate change does not cause storms, global warming is exacerbating weather patterns, seen in hurricane Sandy and the midwestern United States drought of 2012, and is affecting the efficiency of agricultural routines humans have been accustomed to for 10,000 to 15,000 years. Inability to feed exponential growth in population will lead to worldwide chaos.
Humans are messing with the planet’s biodiversity. The mass production of only a few crops is just one example of this. It is wrong to reshape the land in the way humans have with institutions like factory farms, destroying the natural processes the planet has created in order to maximize the nutrients of the food grown.
A healthy climate is also necessary for human health. Surprisingly, climate change indirectly caused the Zika virus, which is rapidly spreading across Latin America and into neighboring countries; unusually heavy rains and warm temperatures, in addition to El Niño, have left standing water, the ideal habitat for mosquito breeding.
What humans do to the earth is only as good as what humans are doing to others. As Indian civil rights activist Mahatma Gandhi once said, “What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another.” Not everyone experiences the effects of the mistreatment of the planet equally. The United States has the ability to assist countries with fewer resources, and the country needs to take care of these people before it is unable to even take care of itself.
What humans do to the earth is only as good as what humans are doing to others.
When writing for the April issue of The Little Hawk, my high school paper, it was through researching for “The Greening Movement” that I found that the United States, on the whole, is teaching climate change wrong.
Journalists have the responsibility to educate the public about events and issues which affect their lives. As a student journalist, I felt I had a unique opportunity to shed light on climate change in a publication that I know my peers read, and to engage them in conversation about an issue that our generation will be responsible for fixing.
I discovered this story while perusing the New York Times: “Science Teachers’ Grasp of Climate Change is Found Lacking.” When I read that, according to the magazine Science teachers only spend one to two hours on average teaching the subject, and that 30% emphasize that climate change is “likely due to natural causes,” I was stunned. I became curious about the way in which City High teaches climate change. In order to start creating solutions for this global issue, the students of today need to understand their role in the health of the earth. It will already be difficult to find solutions for environmental betterment; the process becomes even more difficult when the people affected aren’t even aware of their impact. How was my own school dealing with climate change education?
While researching the article, it was intriguing to see how relevant the issue is to our city and our nation. Enthusiastically, I watched as article upon article revolving around climate education was published over my month-long period of research. One particularly stimulating article was published, appropriately on Earth day, by the IowaWatch. Students from Cedar Falls High School’s newspaper, Tiger Hi-Line, found in a small survey that about half of Iowa teachers “teach climate change as a theory, and acknowledge the variety of thought that exists about the subject.” This was a startling statistic, especially after the conversations I’d had with teachers at City High. Clearly not everyone, even in our state, is in agreement on how climate change should be taught.
I went first to City High Biology teacher Kevin Koepnick and City High Weather & Climate and Ecology teacher Mary Lestina to investigate how these teachers involve their students in the climate conversation. It was enlightening to speak with them, and I was ecstatic to find I go to a school where climate change is taught as fact. My story was fueled by Koepnick’s resolve of the reality of climate change, and by Lestina’s approach of student research to grasp a conceptually difficult topic. I was also inspired by City High student Laura Cornell’s involvement in NextGen, as she works to bring climate change to the front of Iowa’s politics.
Although I am proud of the way City High has taken on the teaching of climate change, through the state’s adopted Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), other states in the nation, such as Wyoming–-the country’s largest energy exporter–-and West Virginia, put economic interests above the earth’s health. These states, among others, have rejected these standards. Coal and oil profits have been put above proper student instruction. Interestingly, educators in the same states where the standards are being rejected urge acceptance of the standards. The companies which reject the standards are only concerned about their own profits, and their bias should not be introduced to, let alone taught in, the classroom.
According to the National Science Teachers Association, as of February 2016, the standards, which assert that human activity has affected the climate, have only been accepted by 17 states and the District of Columbia. The United States needs to rally together as a whole to accept these standards as national benchmarks for student understanding.
The ICCSD has already taken the initiative to improve its curriculum with a two-year plan to better align the courses with the NGSS. City High could further their curriculum expansion by offering an advanced placement course in environmental science. Additionally, climate change discussions should be introduced in other subjects, such as economics. As a district, we need to continue to integrate early the idea that we are all interconnected through a tempered ecosystem.
Although climate change is not a scientific controversy, it is a social controversy. Many in Wyoming, and in other states, argue that national standards for teaching climate change take away choice. However, the ability to make a choice on teaching human activity as a driver of climate change as fact does not exist. Arguments for coal and oil profits don’t–and will never–override the moral obligation humankind has, as a contributing force, to put our efforts into preventing further climate change, not just for ourselves, but for the future generations of all living things.
Despite the fact that 97 percent of the scientific community believes in human-caused global warming, only 19.7 percent of Iowa science teachers believe climate change should be taught as fact, according to a survey reported by IowaWatch.org from a survey by Cedar Falls high school’s newspaper Tiger Hi-Line. City High teachers are working towards thorough climate science education in order to inform the generation that will deal with its effects.
“Every single student becomes a voter. Every single student is a consumer,” City High science teacher Kevin Koepnick said. “And we can’t possibly have an educated populace that is able to make responsible choices if they don’t understand what’s happening in the world around them. That is not a political statement, that is simply a statement of scientific literacy.”
Although most U.S. science teachers address climate change, according to a February 12, 2016 study by Science magazine, insufficient grasp of the subject leads to ineffective teaching.
The study attributed minimal teaching to limited school budgets, political opposition, and an insufficient grasp of the science. The study also found that teachers are intimidated by the conceptually difficult and controversial topic, partially because in the United States, new science recommendations include a Common Core of English and math skills that many states can’t meet.
The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) were developed several years ago by 26 states, and have been adopted by 16 states. These, along with the Iowa Core, are the only teaching standards. Adopted by the ICCSD, the standards serve as guidelines for what each student should learn in their science classes by the end of their high school career. They fit the description Science magazine called for to improve teachers’ knowledge: “teacher-tested, standards-aligned educational materials that document the basis for the scientific consensus about human-caused climate change.”
“NGSS is actually very well written,” Koepnick said. “It’s very strong in what we should make sure that everyone is exposed to. It’s not about climate change; it’s about planetary systems. It’s about, ‘This is how the system works.’ We understand how the system works: If you push this button, this happens. We’re pushing the carbon dioxide button,” he said. “It really is a system, and you can’t change it. There are things about the systems that we have to try to help people understand.”
According to the Science survey, only 30 percent of the 1500 teachers said they emphasized global warming is “likely due to natural causes.” And only 30 percent of middle school teachers and 45 percent of high school teachers correctly identified the degree of consensus of the scientific community of human activity as the predominant cause of global warming as 81 percent to 100 percent.
Koepnick is part of the minority who teaches without mixed messages that climate change is human-caused. He also spends five weeks of his AP Biology class teaching about climate change, well over the one-to-two-hour average of science teachers across the country.
“I use every possible tool [to teach about climate change]; I use data sets from NASA, NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), and the National Parks Service. We do our own studies based on those publicly available data sets. We use every possible thing,” Koepnick said. “Arguably, because of the effect of climate change on the ecosystems around the world, the entire AP Biology ecology unit—which is actually two units—is either directly or indirectly focused on climate change. It’s just unavoidable.”
City High Science teacher Mary Lestina also teaches the scientific consensus: the fact that the Anthropocene, an epoch that started around 1960, is seeing the largest release of greenhouse gases recorded in history. In two of her classes, Weather & Climate and Ecology, she emphasizes student-led research.
“The students really behave like scientists,” Lestina said. “They look at the temperatures and see what’s happening over time.We focus globally, but we break it down into how [climate has] been changing individually in different areas. The amazing thing that they come to the conclusion about is that even though [the planet has] just been rising a few degrees Celsius globally over the Anthropocene, globally [temperature] is increasing 10 degrees here, or decreasing five degrees here, and so we’re getting more dramatic changes,” she said. “And so they start to see that those slight changes are really a bigger picture and pattern in different parts of the world.”
Although Laura Cornell ‘16 hasn’t taken either of Koepnick’s or Lestina’s classes, she feels she found more instruction from the news than from her biology class. Cornell volunteers with the nonprofit organization NextGen Climate, which works with community members and politicians to find solutions to climate change.
“I remember being appalled by the statistics I learned about pollution in a video we watched in biology, but that’s all I really remember about learning about climate change in school,” she said. ‘The news has given me greater confidence to talk about climate change than school.”
Both Lestina and Koepnick see the effects of global warming as a major problem for future generations, and feel every student should be educated about climate change in order to create solutions, instead of exacerbating the problem.
I think it’s really important because it impacts [the students] dramatically,” Lestina said. “We’re a part of the generation that is observing the changes, and the students are a part of the generation that’s going to have to make the changes to alter what’s going on with climate change right now. The students are the most important factor right now,” she said. “If we don’t address it with them, then they don’t know what potential impact they’ll have in the future too.”
“We’re a part of the generation that is observing the changes, and the students are a part of the generation that’s going to have to make the changes to alter what’s going on with climate change right now. The students are the most important factor right now…”
Mary Lestina, City High biology teacher
On April 10, 2015, for the second time in five months, West Virginia altered its standards to consider doubts about the scientific consensus in its method of climate teaching. This came after a contention the previous year which modified the state’s Next Generation Science Standards.
This is a common phenomenon among states whose economies depend on coal, oil, and gas profits—commodities known to emit greenhouse gases. Political actions and statements of value commitment about climate change education in these states may be laced with profit motives.
Cornell comments on these overt actions from coal, oil, and gas companies.
“Their actions are criminal,” Cornell said. “To profit from destruction of the earth and endangering of people’s health is so shameful.”
Koepnick uses his expertise in the science field to explain a political controversy that he says has no room for debate.
“The causes of climate change are simple: We’re taking carbon that nature sequestered hundreds of thousands of feet underground hundreds of millions of years ago, and releasing that carbon into the atmosphere much, much, much more quickly than it could ever be released into the atmosphere by nature,” he said. “That causes an increase in the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide absorbs heat; it’s just a heat sink, it’s just a specific heat problem right out of your Honors Chemistry exam. The climate can’t not warm. Whatever people want to say about cycles and nature, the nature of the chemistry of the atmosphere is that if you do this, it must warm; it can’t do anything else.”
Teachers may be teaching mixed information or misinformation because fewer than half of U.S. science teachers received formal climate science education in college. Koepnick and Lestina both received formal climate education, and work to stay educated on the subject.
“I read everything, I study everything, I watch everything,” Koepnick said. “I have a head start on some people because my background is in the sciences, and so that means that I maybe understand things at a different level.”
Koepnick recognizes the struggle many people from his generation have with grasping the science and concepts of climate change. Only 50 percent of U.S. adults believe human activity is the predominant cause of climate change, the lowest of 20 countries surveyed, according to a February 2016 study from Science magazine.
“What we also have to keep in mind is that I am your parents’ age. None of this was understood when we were in high school, so everything that everyone has to learn about this has to be from science that is within the last 30 years. Most people who are voting haven’t been in the classroom in that long,” he said. “There’s no reason that they should understand it if it’s presented to them by people who have an agenda. And if that agenda is making money, or getting your vote for some other reason, you’re not necessarily going to get the whole story.”
“There’s no reason that they should understand it if it’s presented to them by people who have an agenda. And if that agenda is making money, or getting your vote for some other reason, you’re not necessarily going to get the whole story.”
Kevin Koepnick, City High AP biology teacher
The evolving nature of climate science means continuing teacher education is essential, especially when climate change misinformation also comes in the form of “global warming skeptic organizations,” a term used by the Union of Concerned Scientists to describe prominent organizations “actively working to sow doubt about the facts of global warming.” These organizations, key players in the fossil fuel industry which are acting off of the principle of profit, seek to misinform the public about global warming to delay action on climate change.
“When things are reported in the news, it’s important to remember that the reporters very seldom have any background in the sciences at all,” Koepnick said. “People could get wrong conclusions and end up disbelieving science when they [have the science] explained by someone who didn’t even understand it to begin with.”
In order to evolve the education with the climate science, and as a response to the Next Generation Science Standards, the ICCSD curriculum will be overhauled beginning next school year. The goal is to implement a different course sequence starting in two years.
“There are standards that we need to make sure that every single graduate has been at least exposed to, if not mastered,” Koepnick said. “Everyone’s doing it now, but it’s going to become much, much more overt and in-print where people can easily see it. There’s change on the horizon.”
Cornell believes the ICCSD could do a more thorough job of educating its students about climate change.
“We could focus more on humans’ role in climate change and alternative energy solutions,” Cornell said. “This issue doesn’t have to be partisan at all. The district has absolutely no reason to resist teaching it in fear of ‘leaning left.’”
In addition to changes to the science curriculum, the One UN Climate Change Learning Partnership, which was launched at the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Summit, is a collaborative initiative which supports countries in designing and implementing solutions to climate change. The initiative calls for a holistic approach to the subject, drawing upon subjects like economics, culture, policy, law, and sociology.
“I think we should definitely talk about the effects of environmental policy in government classes and how climate change disproportionately affects people in poverty in the U.S., and especially in third-world countries,” Cornell said.
Koepnick agrees in that climate change escapes the realm of science when it begins to permeate quality of life.
“It’s one of those things that’s so pervasive in biology as soon as you begin to look outside cells and individuals, and begin to look at systems that involve people,” Koepnick said. “The population unit in Introduction to Biology and AP Biology—the effect of climate change is inescapable when you consider how rapidly the world’s population is increasing, and how many billions of people live within five or six feet of current sea levels.”
However, Koepnick emphasizes the importance of foundational learning to give context to a subject that is “conceptually difficult.”
“Do I think that in life science climate change is a vitally important topic? Yeah, but I also think inheritance is pretty important too,” he said. “We have to try to devote an appropriate amount of time to everything. If you don’t understand basic planetary science and some basics of population biology and some basics of evolutionary biology, climate change doesn’t matter to you. There’s no reason why it should, because you can’t see any of the outcomes of climate change,” he said. “If you know a little bit about populations and how they grow, if you know a little bit about extinction, then all of a sudden you realize that a warming atmosphere means a warming ocean, and warming ocean changes weather patterns, weather patterns affect where crops can grow and the sea level, then all of a sudden you start to see that this is a complex picture, and that the outcome isn’t the same for everybody.”
Olivia Parrott: "The Little Hawk" 