Don’t Look Up: Teachers Navigating Educational Movements in Times of Climate Crisis

Despite the overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is real, the response in the education sector has been limited. This article works to identify reasons why by examining how Israeli teachers engage with Climate Change Education (CCE), a global educational movement seeking to empower all people to participate in climate action. Drawing on social movement theory, we consider the factors and conditions under which these teachers decide to teach about climate change (CC). We use a multi-method survey, including questions on self-reported practices and an embedded experiment (n=490) to do so. Our results show that while most Israeli teachers endorse climate science, less than one-fifth teach about CC. Factors like climate concern, teaching experience, and subject assignment (e.g., science) foster CCE adoption, while test-based accountability and issue framing hinder it. Keywords: Climate Change, Climate Change Education, Teachers, Attitudes, Behaviors, Survey, Experiment, Israe