When experts from around the globe gather in Boulder next month for the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Summit, teachers and aspiring teachers will be in the audience, looking for stories to bring back to the classroom. They’ll be crafting meaningful lessons around the themes of the conference—impacts, obligations, and solutions—and working with an educator's guide created at CU Boulder to help their students understand how climate change is impacting people and communities and how they can help.

“My goal is to support the aims of the conference by helping teachers establish a human rights perspective on climate change,” said CIRES Education & Outreach Associate Patrick Chandler. “Grounding climate change education in this human rights perspective, with a focus on people and places… it can make taking action feel more urgent and more possible for students.”

“It can also decrease student and teacher anxiety and grief around climate change,” said his colleague, Gina Fiorile, who is also part of the CIRES Education & Outreach team and Coordinator of an award-winning collection of climate education resources. Helping teachers and students figure out how to participate in solutions to climate change, at the level of their schools or in their communities, is a “proven way to help with climate anxiety,” Fiorile said. 

Full story on the Right Here Right Now website has links to resources, more.