CURRICULUM, INSTRUCTION, AND PEDAGOGY article
Front. Educ.
Sec. STEM Education
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1572965
This article is part of the Research TopicClimate Change Challenge in Educational PsychologyView all 5 articles
What Does It Take to Develop an Effective Climate Change Curriculum?
Provisionally accepted
- Victoria University, Australia, Melbourne, Australia
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The present conceptual paper addresses the question: What does it take to develop an effective climate change (CC) curriculum? Three different lenses are applied in developing a comprehensive critical analysis of CC curriculum development. The first lens consists of examining current literary approaches for addressing CC curriculum development. The second lens takes an empirical approach by examining CC inclusion in two exemplary curricula, the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), and the State of New Jersey Student Learning Standards (NJSLS), United States of America (USA). The third lens focuses on discussing critical gaps revealed in the analysis. These include CC inclusion through a cross-curricular approach unproblematized; key socioeconomic-political concepts underpinning CC not articulated; lack of thematic organization; the importance of non-linear CC thematic organization; terminological consistency; insufficient consideration given for learning progression; and disaster risk reduction-a neglected theme. The paper concludes with a set of recommendations for CC curriculum development and proposes a definition for effective CC curriculum.
Keywords: climate change education, Curriculum, Next Generation Science Standards, New Jersey student learning standards, Climate change literacy, national curriculum, curriculum gaps
Received: 14 Mar 2025; Accepted: 21 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Eilam. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Efrat Eilam, Victoria University, Australia, Melbourne, Australia
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