In June, members of CIRES’ Center for Education, Engagement, and Evaluation (CEEE) hosted a two-and-a-half-day training focused on climate literacy, hazard education, teaching with data, and social-emotional skills. The center’s entire team of curriculum developers and educational specialists presented alongside climate scientists, inspiring educators with a multi-faceted experience.  

The workshop, Resilient Futures, brought together over 50 middle and high school teachers from across the state. Combined, these teachers reach about 5,500 students. By day three, participants were equipped with classroom-ready lesson plans, along with a greater understanding of climate science, and local adaptation and resilience actions being taken here in Colorado to share with their students. CEEE staff hope that the experience will help teachers empower their students to take action on climate and pursue the new Colorado Seal of Climate Literacy.  

“For the first time, CEEE brought together our curriculum in one conference-style workshop to share a range of lessons and pedagogical resources that include authentic data analysis, data sensemaking practices, social-emotional resources for addressing climate grief, and to encourage hope and community action,” said CEEE Education and Engagement co-lead Katya Schloesser, who led the planning and taught a smaller version of the workshop in Gunnison the week prior.

Together with CEEE staff, lessons and panels were led by experts from NOAA, Earth Force, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, the Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN), Lyra Colorado, and Denver Love My Air, led the workshop, which included:

• A keynote speech from Donna Mejia, who spoke about somatic science and grounding practices for teaching.
• Tours of NOAA’s David Skaggs Research Center in Boulder, which is, for example, home to the National Weather Service, and teachers were able to see weather forecasting in real time.
• A showing of “Drifting North: The Arctic Pulse,” a planetarium film documenting the journey of how scientists collect data and weather the Arctic during the 2020 MOSAiC Expedition — a global scientific collaboration that took place on a ship frozen in the Arctic ice.
• An exploration of Data Puzzles, lessons that teach scientific data analysis with best practices for data sensemaking.
• Sessions on peer-reviewed climate education resources from the CLEAN climate resource portal, like a video lesson titled “How different generations talk about climate change,” and NOAA scientists presented on topics like wildfire, drought, and data literacy.
• Hazard education scenario-based role play games, that engage students with systems-level thinking on community planning and response to wildfire, floods, and drought
• Presentations on topics such as ‘Air quality, asthma and you,’ ‘Windstorms on the front range,’ and ‘Beyond doom and gloom, resilience and hope in the face of climate change,’ by different researchers and experts from across CIRES and CU.
• A session for school district science coordinators and teachers to discuss the implementation of the Colorado Seal of Climate Literacy.

Teachers also piloted a new resource, the “Headwaters Drought Resilience Game,” a classroom game that engages students in thinking about drought in their communities, with civic processes and objectives outlined in the Colorado Water Plan. Teachers provided feedback on how curriculum developers might improve the game to enhance student understanding before its full release in the fall of 2025.

Science On A Sphere Education Lead Hilary Peddicord presented several visual data sets using the six-foot diameter sphere housed at NOAA’s David Skaggs Research Center. The SOS uses planetary data to display visualizations. Peddicord also led a panel featuring four Colorado high school students who have received or plan to receive the state’s new Seal of Climate Literacy. The seal prepares high school students for leadership in climate action, and the first cohort graduated this year. Students on the panel shared their passion for climate solutions along with their journey through the program.

“Last year, after experiencing a youth panel at the NOAA Environmental Literacy Program and SOS workshop at The Wild Center, I was blown away by how often I thought about what the students there had said about their experiences and what they needed to thrive as young leaders,” Peddicord said. “I wanted to give the teachers at our workshop the same experience that I had.”

The students also discussed climate mental health, a huge challenge impacting today’s youth. Research shows that action is the best antidote to grief and anxiety, and as each student expressed hope through their studies, projects, and work — the room of teachers felt more hopeful, too.

After a long year of teaching, a full room of teachers pursuing professional learning on climate literacy shows the importance of the topic, and passion of teachers attending.

“I have hope that I can teach these concepts and not drown in depression. I have hope that students participating in the action projects will recognize their own agency to create positive change,” a teacher said.

While CEEE’s educational resources are available to educators year-round, the team values opportunities to share resources in person: the workshop created community among teachers interested in climate education while helping them stay up to date on current climate science and discuss classroom implementation strategies. The team hopes to make the workshop an annual event.

“The energy of the workshop was phenomenal - beginning with grounding ourselves in our current reality, then hearing from students about their passion and need for more climate education, to seeing the excitement, relationship building, and support teachers showed for each other,” Schloesser said. “We plan to carry the energy and momentum forward with Resilient Futures 2026, mark your calendars.”