California's Assembly Bill 1939 died in the Senate Education Committee on July 1, 2022, when a deadline for bills to pass committee expired. If enacted, the bill would have required the California course of science study to emphasize the causes and effects of climate change and the methods to mitigate and adapt to climate change no later than the 2023-2024 school year.
As introduced, the bill would have also required that at least one of the two science courses required for graduation from high school would have to include material on the causes and effects of climate change, starting with the 2027-2028 school year; that provision was removed before the bill passed the Assembly on May 5, 2022.
The bill was introduced by Luz Rivas (D-District 39), Lisa Calderon (D-District 57), and Chris Ward (D-District 78); seven of their colleagues in the Assembly and four of their colleagues in the Senate are listed as coauthors. In 2020, as NCSE previously reported, Rivas was the sole sponsor of the similar Assembly Bill 1922, which eventually died in committee.
