Photo by Rusty Watson on Unsplash.
Connecticut's House Bill 5619 (PDF) would, if enacted, "require that the climate change curriculum in the Next Generation Science Standards be taught as part of the state-wide science curriculum for public schools and that such teaching begin in elementary school."
The bill, introduced by Christine Palm (D-District 36) on January 27, 2021, and referred to the Joint Committee on Education, is similar to her House Bill 5011 from 2019. Similar provisions were later incorporated in three bills in 2019. None of these four bills passed.
In 2015, Connecticut adopted the Next Generation Science Standards, which received a B+ in "Making the Grade?" — the recent study of climate change in state science standards conducted by NCSE and the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund.
With the anti-climate-change-education House Bill 5235 recently introduced by John Piscopo (R-District 76), Connecticut's legislature is again host to dueling legislation, as NCSE's Glenn Branch described in his 2019 article "Science Teachers in the Hot Seat."
