TEC’s Climate Leaders in Action (CLiA) curriculum is a comprehensive standards-based education and career pathway-preparedness program designed to empower students with the knowledge and skills to effectively manage energy and water usage in their homes, schools, and communities. Students employ Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) skills that support sustainable resource management and progress towards immediate and long-term energy and carbon reduction goals. Through CLiA, students are actively engaged in lessons where they apply critical thinking, problem-solving, and teamwork to explore, design, and engineer innovative practices and technology for a healthier environment.
The Energy Coalition joined the Learning Lab Partner Network in 2019, and its Climate Leaders in Action lessons are now available as part of the Learning Lab annual subscription. The curriculum currently available contains 12 lessons for grades 9-12 covering climate change, energy, water and waste.
Tinuviel Carlson, Senior Project Coordinator for TEC, shares her thoughts on why this curriculum is so important to preparing future climate leaders:
Why is it important to provide a curriculum that uses critical thinking, problem-solving, and teamwork in lessons about resource management and carbon reduction?
Climate change is a complex issue that requires new and creative social, scientific and technological solutions. Critical thinking skills are a crucial backbone for students to come up with creative solutions that combat the impacts of climate change. CLiA gives students confidence in their ability to work with peers to break down problems. These are tools our future leaders need to decarbonize society and promote sustainability.
How does the Climate Leaders in Action curriculum connect students to their learning?
Our curriculum aims to empower students to be climate leaders within their communities through the whole-system approach of energy, water, waste and climate impacts. CLiA uses a model in which the educator is the facilitator who guides students to apply science and engineering practices while building their conceptual knowledge.
Each lesson uses experiential learning as a framework to encourage students to think critically about human consumption of energy and water and come up with actionable solutions within their local communities. Through the use of STEM, science and engineering practices, and crosscutting concepts and language arts skills, students discover and adopt behaviors that support a healthier environmental future.
Access the Climate Leaders in Action curriculum here.
