NCSE Executive Director Ann Reid was featured in "Students Want Climate Change Education. Most Teachers Don't Get Enough Training," which appeared in Education Week (January 31, 2023).
The article reported the results of a December 2022 survey among K-12 teachers, which revealed that about 60 percent of teachers address climate change in their classrooms, but more than 75 percent have never "received any professional training or education on climate change or how to teach it."
Among science teachers in particular, only 40 percent reported that they "took a class that covered the science of climate change in college." The 2014-2015 survey (PDF) conducted by researchers at NCSE and Penn State found a similar result, with only 42.9 percent of science teachers having taken such a class.
Furthermore, Education Week's survey found that nearly 20 percent of teachers who don't address climate change reported not doing so because of their own lack of knowledge. Reid commented, "You can integrate climate-relevant topics and discussions in any grade level, but if you don't know anything about it yourself, that's going to be hard."
The article also cited a different Education Week survey as evidence that "What students — or at least those in high school — say they most want to learn about is how climate change will affect the future of the Earth and society."
