Mitigating Climate Change: Understanding How Teachers Integrate Social Justice Themes In Environmental Education

Climate change is an increasingly severe global issue with devastating repercussions for marginalized, poor, and vulnerable people. As a result, environmental education has evolved over the years to build upon outdoor nature study and ecological concepts to incorporate fundamental principles of social and environmental justices while addressing climate change. This qualitative research study employed both an online survey and semi-structured interviews to address two research questions grounded in the environmental justice movement to determine how social justice intersects with pressing global issues commonly found in environmental science curriculum. First, how do environmental science educators integrate social justice themes in their classrooms? Secondly, how has environmental education evolved to incorporate climate change education? Survey participants were taken from the Advanced Placement Environmental Science Facebook group, and individuals volunteered to participate in a follow-up, indepth interview. The data from the survey indicated participants do in fact teach climate change, are motivated by altruistic principals, and incorporate social justice themes in their AP Environmental Science classrooms. Furthermore, the interviews were transcribed and coded, while memo writing was used to ground theory to answer the primary research question. Environmental science educators do in fact include social justice in their classrooms through case studies, local connections, college preparatory programs, and environmental literacy initiatives