Teaching All Students about Climate Action with Laura Schifter

Aspen Institute Senior Fellow Laura Schifter shares about her work at This Is Planet Ed-part of the Aspen Institute's Energy and Environment Program. This Is Planet Ed an initiative to unlock the power of education as a force for climate solutions to empower the rising generation to lead a sustainable and resilient future. In this conversation we discuss why learning about climate action should be part of the content in all classes and we'll share some actionable ideas for classrooms and schools. 

Links:

This Is Planet Ed

Laura Schifter, Ed.D. 

Subject to Climate - teacher resources

Transcript

Scott Lee: Greetings friends and colleagues, welcome to The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast, the professional educator’s thought partner-a service of Oncourse Education Solutions. I am Scott Lee. If you would like to learn more about how we partner with schools and education organizations please visit our website at www.oncoursesolutions.net and reach out.

Our guest today is Dr. Laura Schifter, a senior fellow with the Aspen Institute where she leads This Is Planet Ed, an initiative to unlock the power of education as a force for climate solutions whose work is designed to empower the rising generation to lead a sustainable and resilient future. She also is a Senior Advisor with SustainableED at Brown University’s Annenberg Institute. She has co-authored two books How Did You Get Here? Students with Disabilities and Their Journeys to Harvard and the recently published Students, Schools, and Our Climate Moment: Acting Now to Secure Our Future. We’ll discuss her current work and how she supports educators in a few moments, but we’ll start off with Laura sharing about how and why she became an elementary school teacher.

welcome Laura to the Thoughtful Teacher Podcast. 

Laura Schifter: Thanks so much for having me, Scott. 

Scott Lee: So, first you started off as an elementary school teacher. Tell us why you decided to become an elementary school teacher, and then how that led to academia and to your work now with the This Is Planet Ed Initiative.

Laura Schifter: So, actually if I wanna start with, going way back to when I was seven years old. At age seven I was actually diagnosed with dyslexia and my parents were told from a very early age that they shouldn't expect much from me academically, that I would be a nice and happy kid, but I wouldn't necessarily do that well in school.

And I was very lucky, that my parents didn't believe what they were told in that moment and they saw the way that I worked on things and really wanted to ensure that I had the best educational opportunities I could. And so they really pushed for my academic success. And one of the things that I learned really early on was that the teachers I had really determined whether I would love learning and do well and succeed, or whether I struggled and had difficulty When I had educators who removed barriers in the classrooms and provided high expectations for my success I thrived in school and I did really well.

And on the reverse side, when I had educators that, you know, put up additional barriers or refused to acknowledge the challenges I face, or even worse, lowered expectations for what I was able to do, I struggled more in those classes and I was very fortunate that I had a lot more of the better educators than the other, teachers in my classrooms.

But it was because of those teachers that I saw the powerful impact that educators can have on student success and I wanted to be able to have that impact for other children out there like me, who may also be experiencing difficulties in school. So, I knew from the moment I entered college I wanted to be in education. And when I graduated, I wanted to do work in education. I started my career as a first and second grade teacher. And I worked in particular with students that had difficulties in learning math. And as I was doing that work, I wanted to understand more about how kids learned, which ended up taking me to a master's program. And during that program I learned more about policy and how you can advocate for better educational opportunities for students. And I had the opportunity to work on issues related to special education policy here in DC on the Hill, and continue my research and teaching at a graduate school level and really helping people understand the needs of students with disabilities, how to remove barriers for them and provide greater opportunities for success.

And that was my career up until 2018. Where I then took a major pivot in my career and started thinking more about the intersection of education and climate change. 

Scott Lee: Uhhuh. Oh, yeah the, the former special ed teacher that I am, I just cringe when I hear a story like that. So, that is, that is so great that your parents, advocated for you and that you were able to find those teachers that understood that dyslexia is a learning difference not a learning disability. 

Laura Schifter: Yeah. And I have to admit, even with the work that I do now, I am very grateful, that I'm dyslexic because I actually know that it helps me see things slightly differently than the way that people traditionally see things. And I come at problems in a different way. And I think a lot of my professional success and the things that I love doing professionally or because of my dyslexia. So even though I didn't learn how to read just like everybody else, and I still struggle with reading today, I know that there are a lot of strengths that I have because of my dyslexia too.

Scott Lee: Mm-hmm. So, you mentioned, 2018, what was the reason, or was there an event that led you to focus on climate change in education? 

Laura Schifter: Yeah, so at the time I was working on issues in education policy. If somebody had asked me at that time, you know, do you care about climate change? I, I would've said, yes. But we work in education. I would've said there are a lot of problems in education. Climate change was somebody else's problem to deal with. I was really focused on what the issues were in education and how to improve opportunities within the education sector.

But all of that changed for me on one day. I, the kids had the day off from school. I was playing with them in the basement. And I got news alert after news alert. We had a decade left to address climate change to avoid the most devastating impacts, and it was in that moment looking at my three children that I felt a tremendous amount of grief and responsibility being their mother. And I realized for the first time the misconceptions that I held about climate change, that it was a far-off problem for my children's, children's, children's children, and that it was somebody else's problem to handle were wrong. 

I realized that this was the issue that was fundamentally going to shape my children and all children's lives. And that we could have the best education system in the world, and I started to question, would it matter if the full impacts of climate change took hold? And in that moment, I just felt very unsettled. I knew I had to do something to work on this issue. I actually spent several weeks feeling, utterly depressed, if I'm going to be honest in searching for meaning for this.

And I had lunch with, another educator friend, and she looked at me in the face and she said, “Laura, you've gotta stop complaining about this issue and just do something.” 

So, I spent some time, applying for jobs or thinking about applying for jobs, I should say, at the Sierra Club at the Environmental Defense Fund. And nothing felt right. 

But then Jay Inslee announced he was running for president, and he said on day one of his administration, he would ask every department to submit its plan to address climate change. And in that moment, I realized, “hey The Department of Education doesn't have a plan to address climate change. I work a lot in education with a lot of people across the education sector. I don't hear us talking about what we could do as an education system. Maybe this is something I could do as bring leaders together within education to learn more about what our schools could do on climate change, and put together a framework for how our education system can take action.”

That led me to talk to anyone and everyone that would talk to me. And I ended up meeting somebody at the Aspen Institute, where I proposed launching a national commission, to develop a framework for what our education sector could do. And they were, willing to say yes and bring me on to do that.

And that was where I then launched This Is Planet Ed. To really shape what that framework could be for our K 12 schools is where we started, and then we expanded and we looked at what, early childhood could do higher ed and children's media as well. 

Scott Lee: Mm-hmm. All right. And we will talk about that in just a second.

I just want to mention that the first place I noticed the work that you're doing was an editorial that you wrote in the Hechinger Report advocating for teaching about climate change, in early grades in elementary, even first and second grade even. And, that might be a little bit surprising to people. You know, usually we don't even talk about science or social studies until fourth, fifth grade in elementary school. Why teach kids about climate change or teach younger students about climate change?

Laura Schifter: Yeah, so one of the things that I think is really important to understand is climate change, like a lot of topics builds on itself. It's not something that you do in one unit in seventh grade science, and that's it. There are fundamental concepts that really build on each other that help. Children understand what is going on with climate change right now.

And there are ways to break the issue down even at, very young ages to help build those foundational concepts that then help children understand it more as they're getting older. And one of the most fundamental things that we can build an understanding of that will help people understand climate change further on is an understanding that Earth is our home. And that we depend on our climate to thrive and do the things that we love to do. And oftentimes I think that that understanding goes away from people. We think, people, humans are at the top of the pyramid and we can control and manipulate everything that goes on underneath us, but we can't. 

We depend on our climate to have a certain stability that we, that we love to be able to work the way that we do to be able to go out for a hike, go skiing, go to the beach, play on a playground, play sports. We depend on our climate to do the things that we do in our lives. So really at the earliest ages, building an understanding with kids that earth is our shared home, and that we depend on our climate and nature to thrive and do the things that we wanna do, is very foundational at an early age.

And I'll also say there are other things that we can do to start teaching about solutions. So, I have a second grader now. When they were in kindergarten, they were doing a unit on transportation, and they're learning about transportation and their community and learning about buses and about cars.

And when we teach that most often, we're teaching it with the cars that we see around, which often are a lot of gas cars. But why can't we start teaching kids about different forms of transportation and electric cars and some of the solutions that are out there? So, there are a lot of different ways that we can integrate learning about climate change, even in those earliest ages, and help, young children both understand, our dependence on our earth. And the solutions that we can start seeing in our lives every day. 

Scott Lee: So, let's talk specifically about, This Is Planet Ed. Can you share the basic overview of what, the initiative is and what teachers should know about it? 

Laura Schifter: Yeah. So this is Planet Ed. , It started with this National Commission focused on our K 12 schools.

That commission was co-chaired, by former Education Secretary John King and former governor and EPA administrator, Christie Todd Whitman, and it included leaders from all across the country. It included, high school students at the time. It included, the leaders of our teachers’ unions. It included superintendents.

And this group really came together to learn about what our schools could do to take action on climate change. And it was really driven by kind of four key questions on what our schools can do. What can our schools do to reduce our impact on the environment? So, some things a lot of people don't know is actually how big our education sector is we have, almost a hundred thousand schools across the country. Our schools operate the largest mass transit fleet in the country, and these things have an impact our environment. So how can we do things differently? We also asked how is climate change impacting schools today?

It is impacting schools through heat, we're seeing schools now close more often related to heat days. Flooding-we're seeing schools get impacted by flooding. How are schools thinking about putting plans in place to, consider the climate risks that they're facing and ensure that students have supports and that their learning continues and that, they're supported through the climate impacts that we're seeing?

And then really key to this is what are, what is the teaching and learning that needs to happen? To think about how we're supporting students and understanding how climate change is impacting our world today and how it'll impact our future tomorrow. I mean, ultimately, we're responsible for preparing young people for success in the world that they are entering and climate change is gonna be shaping that. It's gonna be shaping the jobs of the future. It's going to be shaping, what, students are able to do, where they're able to live, how they think about living in community. And so, as educators, we need to help prepare them to succeed in that.

And so that means thinking about how it needs to be integrated across the curriculum from as young as first and second grade to more in depth courses in high school and career and technical education and really thinking about that trajectory through school. And then the last thing to really focus on is this is a moment of transition.

And there's an opportunity for us to really center schools in this work that have historically been left behind, and ensure that they are able to benefit both from the educational opportunities that are out there. But also, really thinking about the health benefits that you can get from transitioning to more sustainable school systems and frankly, the cost savings that you can get by shifting to things like renewable energy.

So, I think what I would like educators to know about the work of This Is Planet Ed, is that we really work to provide a framework for what our schools can do. And my hope is that educators can use this to then advance work within their local communities as well. 

Scott Lee: Mm-hmm. Because, yeah, I think it's important to point out, I mean, one of the things when I first started about climate change in schools, I've either been a history and social studies teacher or a special ed teacher, and, you know, “oh, that's, that's important but, you know, that's, that's what science teachers are supposed to be doing.” And you're pointing out that this is not just a science teacher issue, it's all teachers.

Laura Schifter: Yes. And so can I tell you one of my, my most favorite classes I took growing up was a high school class I took on geography. And this class wasn't your typical geography class. I'm hoping as a social studies and history teacher you might have, 

Scott Lee: yes. 

Laura Schifter: But it wasn't your typical geography class where you need to memorize the names of all the continents. But it really talked about how climate and environment and natural resources shape then the communities that live there. It shapes what they do in terms of, farming. What are, what's the local economy, how does that shape where borders are drawn? How does that impact culture? You know, all of these things are intertwined together.

And so, thinking about it just as a science issue, actually. Narrows the impact that climate change has on our society at large. You know, when you think about major conflicts that have occurred, oftentimes those are battles for resources. Mm-hmm. And resources are impacted by our changing climate. And so actually thinking about the way that that climate change puts pressure on things.

Exactly a social studies issue that needs to be grappled with. Thinking about how to process some of the emotional impacts that will go on related to climate change is something that young people can grapple with through literature and poetry and art. And so, there are ways to provide these opportunities for learning across the curriculum.

It is not just something that would be isolated to a science classroom. 

Scott Lee: So, equally important to what teachers can do we also have to have support from school boards and school administrators. So, what should folks who are principals or district level administrators or school board policy makers, be doing and thinking about.

Laura Schifter: Yeah, so school leaders and school administrators have a very important role to play on this in terms of providing the leadership, providing the support, and finding the resources to be able to do this work. One of the things that I think is, is really exciting about the work that we've seen in K 12 schools.

In particular over the past five years is we've seen a lot of school boards pass resolutions to develop comprehensive climate action plans, in school districts. A lot of those resolutions. Have been pushed by students within the community. We worked with some students in Salt Lake City who came together to advocate that their school board develop a resolution and then a climate action plan.

And students themselves went and advocated for this with school board members. And now Salt Lake City has a climate action plan that they're following to reduce their environmental impact. We've seen it in other places like Denver, Pittsburgh. There are places all across the country where, school boards are passing resolutions and developing climate action plans, and that really charts a leadership course that then everybody in the school district can get behind and it creates learning opportunities within infrastructure itself when they make decisions to switch things from oil and gas based systems to renewable energy and you add solar panels to a school roof, that's not just having it on the school roof. That becomes a learning opportunity for a classroom as well. So, the leadership from administration and school boards is essential. 

Scott Lee: Mm-hmm. I've thought about this several years ago when I was involved in a, a building project for a school and I was like, “we need to have solar panels on the roof.” What? I mean, and this is technology that goes back to the mid-seventies and I'm like, “what if we had mandated that all new school buildings would have solar panels on their roofs?” School is usually out on the hottest days of the year anyway, and you could have all that power going back into the grid for free or almost free. And it's like we've missed the bus on a lot of opportunities. 

Laura Schifter: Yeah. So, there's one superintendent, a former superintendent now that we worked with in Batesville, Arkansas. And when he actually took over as superintendent, , the district was in a lot of financial issues and they were talking about.

Quote, finding efficiencies within the budget. And, you know, oftentimes I think when schools are talking about finding efficiencies, it usually means people are gonna get laid off. 

Scott Lee: Mm-hmm. 

Laura Schifter: This superintendent thought about it a little bit differently, and one of the places that they found efficiencies was actually, with energy and they created a partnership built a massive solar array for the school district and then reduce their energy costs entirely because they were getting the energy at a much lower rate. The district ended up in a surplus and with the extra money, this superintendent used it to raise teacher pay.

Scott Lee: It's, yeah, it. It really shouldn't be that complicated. Right. Or it's not that complicated if there's a political will. 

Laura Schifter: Yeah. 

Scott Lee: So. Speaking of political will. In many states, state legislatures which have the ultimate control over education policy actively pursue goals that promote the belief that climate change is not happening or, if it is happening, there's nothing we can do about it because humans didn't cause it despite the scientific consensus that of course that's wrong. So, what advice would you offer educators, on all levels, teachers, administrators, school board members who live in states where the policy approach is towards climate change is incorrect. 

Laura Schifter: Yeah, so I think one of the important things for educators to recognize first is there's actually significantly more consensus on this issue than you would be led to believe, because oftentimes.

The negative voices are the loudest voices in the room. And yet Yale's Center on Climate Communication consistently does polling to see, what are solutions and, and how do people support solutions and in every state across the country. There's a significant number of people that support, in particular teaching about climate change in schools.

And so, it's an important thing to know that there is this consensus out there, even if you might not hear it. And a lot of times people's fear of the politics prevents them from actually leading the conversation. There's. A woman that we worked with in Oklahoma who was an educator in Oklahoma, and she was very concerned about leading a conversation within her community on climate change. She was a science teacher. She had been exposed to, traveling, actually, I think it was to the Arctic, and had seen some of the climate impacts very firsthand up there, and felt very compelled. She had to teach about this issue after seeing what was happening up there. But she was scared because she was worried that people would reject it, and then she thought about it more.

She knew her community very well. She knew there was a deep care and concern for the land in Oklahoma. And so, she led a conversation with her students, focused on what the community cared about, and talked about how the land in Oklahoma was changing and used that as an opportunity to connect to other issues, and by focusing on what her community cared about and what they valued. She found that she had a lot more support in her community than, than people telling her that this was a problem. 

And so, I would just encourage educators to think deeply about, well, what is it that our community cares about? How are those things being impacted by climate change? And is there a path for me to lead a conversation? Really relying on the things that bring us together instead of the things that rip us apart. 

Scott Lee: I think that's a great example. Can you, share some stories about educators or schools that are working with, This Is Planet Ed right now and, and how that's going, what they're doing those kinds of things.

Laura Schifter: Yeah, so one woman in particular that I wanna highlight, her name is Megan Bang. She's a professor of learning sciences at Northwestern. And I, I wanna highlight a curriculum that she helped start, in particular in a partnership with Seattle Public Schools that spread elsewhere now and it's called Learning in Places. And especially, because you mentioned at the beginning the idea of teaching issues around climate change early on. Early on, it's focused on those younger grades in particular. And it really gets kids out into nature and learning in nature and start seeing the way that nature connects to culture and decision making in different ways.

One of the things that I think is really powerful in terms of the way that they've framed things is, is they really push young children even to start asking, “should we” questions. So, one of the things that I know she highlighted for me is we emphasize a lot of “can we” questions. 

Let's say after a rainstorm, you see worms on the sidewalk. There's the question, “can we pick up this worm and move it somewhere else?” But the question of “should we pick up this worm and move it somewhere else?” is a slightly different question. And so, they'll be out in nature with kids having these conversations. 

And you know the answer might still be yes, this worm is in the middle of a street and it could be dangerous and we should move it. But asking the questions, “well, what happens if we move it?” Helps you think about the way that you are impacting the environment and not just thinking about, “well, can I do it?” But really reflecting on should we do it, and building some of that in as at a young age. So that's one thing that I wanna highlight in particular where I, I'm really excited to see some of the work that she's done.

I also would love to talk about, we went and visited a Net Zero Elementary School here in Arlington, Virginia. It's the school, Alice West Fleet Elementary School. We toured it when the, commission released its action plan, and so a net zero school produces as much energy as it consumes over the course of the year. So essentially their energy bill at the end of the year would be zero if it's achieving net zero energy. And we went into this school and the building is absolutely a part of the learning experience for the students. You go in and you see this thing in the center of the school, that's the power pole, and it has these, lights up on it where the red is the amount of energy that the building's, consuming, and the blue is the amount of energy that it's producing. And you can see the way that that shifts even throughout the day. How is it different when it's a cloudy day? How is it different? When we shut off all the power in our building on a Wednesday for five minutes, and kids are learning about this actively throughout their elementary school.

And one of the things that I thought was so powerful about seeing the school, and seeing the students really engaging in this learning was also then hearing the educators talk about how this learning was spilling out. And so, students would go home and they'd say things to their parents like, “hey, we compost at our school. Why aren't we composting at home?” 

And so when you think about the power of schools in terms of making a difference. A big part of the way that schools can make a difference is modeling these solutions, teaching students about them, and then being leaders within their communities and having this work spread.

Scott Lee: So, you've got a new book out, right? Tell us about the new book, where people can find it, and also, where people can find out more about This Is Planet Ed. 

Laura Schifter: So, I wrote Students, Schools and Our Climate Moment: Acting Now to Secure Our Future with, Jonathan Klein. And what we work to do in this book is really tell the stories of educators that are doing this work across the country. So, we do tell a little bit more about Megan and, and her experience, with learning in places. We tell stories about the former superintendent, superintendent Hester from, Batesville, Arkansas in that book. We tell the stories of the students in Salt Lake City, that push for change in their local community.

And what we try to do is use these cases as examples to say, well, what can we learn from these experiences that can then help educators in other communities or students in other communities, really advance and accelerate action themselves? So, our hope is with this book. You can hear really inspiring stories of people doing this work all across the country and have actionable steps that you can take within your own community.

You can find that book. There's more information about that book, as well as other resources for educators at. Laura shifter, S-C-H-I-F-T-E r.com, and you can also find more information about our, this is Planet Ed work holistically at, This Is Planet Ed.org. You can find, advocacy toolkits for young people on This Is Planet Ed.

You can find educator advocacy toolkits on those resources as well, school board member toolkits. So, there are a lot of resources in both places that can help you do work in your own community. 

Scott Lee: Yeah, and we'll be sure and have links to those on our website, as well for folks, thank you so much for joining us today, Laura.

Laura Schifter: Thank you so much, Scott. It's been great being here.

Scott Lee: The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast is brought to you as a service of Oncourse Education Solutions. If you would like to learn more about how we partner with schools and youth organizations strengthening learning cultures and developing more resilient youth, please visit our website at w w w dot oncoursesolutions dot net. Also, please follow me on social media, my handle on Instagram and Bluesky is @drrscottlee and on Mastodon @drrscottlee@universedon.com

This has been episode 2 of the 2026 season. If you enjoy this podcast, please tell your friends and colleagues about us, in person and on social media. Also, five-star reviews on your podcast app helps others find us. The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast is a production of Oncourse Education Solutions LLC, Scott Lee producer. Guest was not compensated for appearance, nor did guest pay to appear. Episode notes, links and transcripts are available at our website w w w dot thoughtfulteacherpodcast dot com. Theme music is composed and performed by Audio Coffee.