Supporting Urban Public School Teachers in Creating and Implementing Place-Based, Justice-Centered Climate Change Curriculum

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 9
  In Roundtable Session: Teacher Agency for Instruction and Curriculum

Abstract

Moving beyond a narrowly defined vision of place-based education toward an expansive education for climate action and justice is an essential task for educators and educational researchers in the present and immediate future (see, e.g, Gruenewald 2003). There is a lack of empirical studies addressing the provision of effective support for urban public school teachers in developing and implementing place-based, justice-centered curriculum that focuses explicitly on issues of climate change. Our research emerges from the creation of just such a program in a major west-coast city which seeks to empower teachers to collaboratively create climate-related curriculum; we aim to develop a clearer understanding of both the program’s effectiveness and the factors participating teachers identify as essential to its success.

Authors

• Jacob Barton, University of California - Berkeley

• Helen Fitzmaurice, University of California - Berkeley