Authors
Kathryn Boyd (CIRES), Gina Fiorile (CIRES), Patrick Chandler (CIRES), Anne Gold (CIRES), Alicia Christensen (CIRES), Daniela Pennycook (CIRES), Naomi Ochwat (CIRES), Sean Fox (SERC), Monica Bruckner (SERC), Frank Niepold (NOAA Climate Program Office)

Abstract

It is imperative that we build capacity within communities to implement mitigation and adaptation solutions to address the societal and ecological impacts of a changing climate. Education is critical to support action and empowerment in future generations and educators require resources to implement quality climate education. The CLEAN collection is an online database of around 1000 free, peer-reviewed, and ready-to-use educational resources (including learning activities, visualizations, videos, and short demonstrations/experiments) for teaching about climate and energy in grades K-16 (college undergraduate instruction). All materials at the elementary, middle, and high school level are aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The CLEAN website features climate and energy background information to help educators understand and be equipped to teach the big ideas in climate and energy science as well as professional development opportunities through thematic newsletters and webinars. Support pages for educators comprise guides to using the CLEAN collection, curriculum development templates, strategies for elementary teaching, support for mental health, information on culturally relevant teaching, approaches for addressing controversy, and guides for teaching about the National Climate Assessment. Along with the teaching resources, CLEAN hosts a community of practice that includes climate and energy educators and other climate education partners. The CLEAN Network is a professionally diverse community committed to improving climate and energy literacy with weekly video conference discussions and presentations, an email list, as well as workshops and networking opportunities hosted at large events and conferences. This poster presentation will give an overview of the CLEAN project, how to get involved, and some results from the marketing evaluation showcasing the reach of CLEAN. We also plan to discuss currently developing projects such as our research and development of a framework for teaching climate across the curriculum.