Faced with the rapidly accelerating effects of climate change, your generation, Generation Z, is rallying around the fight against environmental degradation to a degree unlike any before. Through no fault of your own, you’ve inherited a world at deep risk and are leading the advocacy to save it. Many of you are voicing your concerns, joining campaigns, lobbying for new policies, and turning to climate change jobs to make a difference. It may surprise you to hear, but one such climate change job is teaching.

That’s right. If today’s students are taught a comprehensive climate change education, focusing both on study and real-life applications, we could see significant change for the better. Imagine your generation’s willpower and concern for the environment extended into an entire second generation that is as of now approximately 38% of the population in the United States and growing.

Even if you don’t have a teaching background, you can still make an impact as a teacher. Teach For America recruits leaders like you from every area of study and industry to serve as teachers in the corps. In partnership with schools and communities, TFA aims to co-create a more equitable world in which all children will have the opportunity to attain an excellent education. 

Education is Key Among the Many Climate Change Topics

Recent research has shown that if just 16 percent of high school students in high- and middle-income countries receive climate change education, that could cause a nearly 19 gigaton reduction of carbon dioxide by 2050.

Learning green skills, as they have now been named, empowers students to be good citizens of the world. We need teachers dedicated to climate change education to make this a reality.

At a Teach For America Equity Talks event bringing together thought leaders across intersectional issues, Parker McMullen Bushman, an environmentalist ranked among the top 20 Most Influential People in the Outdoor Industry by Outside magazine, named clear and efficient ways teachers can implement green skills. 

The list of action items Bushman names begins with a classroom lens but extends to the students’ community, with the aim of seeing sustainable action that can extend to the world–and it all begins with the teachers.

6 Ways Teachers Can Drive Climate Change Education

1. Integrate climate education into critical curricula across various subjects, from science and geography to social studies and literature.
2. Provide students with opportunities to explore the interconnectedness of environmental issues and social justice, fostering critical thinking and empathy. 
3. Develop environmental literacy through hands-on learning experiences, community science projects, and community-based research. 
4. Empower students to see themselves as agents of change by incorporating diverse voices and narratives into education materials and discussion.
5. Forge partnerships with local organizations, environmental justice groups, and community leaders to bring in real-world perspectives and experiences.
6. Encourage students to amplify environmental challenges in their communities and develop solutions through student-led initiatives and activism.

These lessons and action items apply to all ages and subject matters. That means you can teach climate change education across any grade or content area you are assigned while in the corps or any time afterward. 

Teaching Gives a Voice to Communities Hit Hardest by Climate Change 

Climate change is not just affecting far-off places, it’s hitting close to home, especially in many of the communities where Teach For America works. These communities, mainly made up of low-income families, people of color, and other historically marginalized people, contribute less to climate change but are hit hardest by its effects. On top of that, factors like living near highways or industrial sites, lacking proper infrastructure, and facing other social issues make it harder for members of these communities to deal with the impacts of climate change.

Teach For America aims to partner with schools, families, and communities to disrupt systemic educational inequities. By joining the corps and being part of this movement, you would also be working to disrupt economic, political, social, and environmental inequities, helping give a more empowered generation the knowledge and tools to shift their own trajectory and the world’s.

Gen Z Teachers Are Naturals in the Classroom 

Being young adults positions you especially well to lead today’s learners. Your dedication to social justice prepares you to create inclusive learning environments that all students can benefit from.

Sharing similar qualities to the young Generation Alpha students you will teach, you are uniquely poised to leverage students’ natural curiosity about the world around them and their limitless energy for hands-on work. The teachings you instill in students from a young age about how to save their world will stay with them as they get older and pave the way for a more eco-friendly society in the long-run.