Climate change belongs in the English curriculum just as much as it belongs in science. Last spring, I presented about my experiences teaching a climate literacy unit to my 9th grade English class. During the presentation, I encouraged audience members to consider the myriad ways reading and analyzing climate texts can engage students from any background. 

Climate literacy is defined as “an understanding of your influence on climate and climate’s influence on you and society” (“What Is Climate Science Literacy?”). However, for students to gain this understanding, they must also understand the “beliefs, values, and behaviors” inherent to society’s current and future relationship with the climate (Center for Climate Literacy). Because of this, reading stories and creative texts that represent these intangible ideas is incredibly beneficial. The Center for Climate Literacy at the University of Minnesota “believe[s] that stories are ground zero for building universal climate literacy.” Through reading a novel that centers on an environmental topic, a series of non-fiction articles about biodiversity loss/protection, watching a documentary, or analyzing a collection of non-literary texts, students will come away with a nuanced understanding of the climate crisis through the lens of human experiences.  

English climate literacy units can take many forms. In the past, I’ve experienced success with a one-to-two-week unit that centers on a variety of short texts, each associated with a climate vocabulary word such as “biodiversity” or “ecocentrism.” I know teachers who have embedded a lesson on extreme weather within a month-long all-class novel unit on Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. I’ve even taught a three day mini-unit on indigenous climate justice as a precursor to a novel written by a Native American author. 

Because climate change is such a broad, multifaceted issue, there are endless ways to approach it and meet Language Arts reading and writing standards at the same time. There’s also no pressure to include every story and voice related to climate change in a single unit. Exposing students to just one or two climate texts or encouraging them to draw climate connections in a seemingly unrelated text can make a powerful impression.

As you plan your own climate change unit, keep the following in mind:

  1. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
  2. You don’t have to be an expert to teach climate literacy. 
    • Start your unit with a “Know, Want to Know, Learned” protocol to find out what students already know and what they are curious about. Let their prior knowledge and questions guide your learning as a class.
  3. Always end a unit with action and hope .
    • The climate crisis can be a scary topic, but “it’s not all doom and gloom,” as David Attenborough says. Be sure to end a climate literacy unit with an emphasis on the importance of collective action. An even stronger conclusion to the unit can be a climate solutions project where students themselves take action by researching and advocating for a climate solution of their choice. 

Teaching climate literacy through stories and other creative texts has been a highlight of my teaching career so far. I hope you join a growing community of educators from across the disciplines as we seek to ensure the coming generations are climate literate and empowered. 

Works Cited

Center for Climate Literacy, University of Minnesota, climateliteracy.umn.edu/.

Oziewicz, Marek. “The CLICK Framework: A Care-Centric Conceptual Map for Organizing Climate Literacy Pedagogy.” Climate Literacy in Education, vol. 1, no. 2, 2023, pp. 44-50.

“What Is Climate Science Literacy?” NOAA Climate.Gov, www.climate.gov/teaching/what-is-climate-science-literacy.

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