Five years ago, a UNESCO study of educational policies in 100 countries revealed that nearly half neglected to mention climate change. Even worse, only 23% of teachers felt able to properly address climate action in their classrooms. Yet, in a 2022 study published by the international organization the following year, students overwhelmingly expressed concerns about the way climate change was being—or not being—taught, especially since 70% of those surveyed said they didn’t feel they could explain what it is. Among their demands: to understand the human role in nature and how to take concrete actions to protect it; to learn through experiential and reflective ways of learning about sustainability and climate; for diverse aspects of climate change to be taught across subjects; and understand how climate change affects their particular geographic area as well as the world at large.
It’s no wonder students are clamoring for better sustainability and climate instruction. In the United States alone, they’ve witnessed some of the most devastating effects of climate change. Over the past three years, they’ve seen record-breaking heat in more than a dozen states; two of the most destructive wildfires in California’s history; a blanket of toxic, orange smoke engulf New York City and elsewhere due to massive wildfires in Canada; and an ever-increasing number of severe weather events, all of which have claimed lives and caused billions of dollars’ worth of damage. Last year was the third warmest on record, with 2024 the hottest and 2023 second.
In the U.S., more than 86 percent of teachers and 84 percent of parents support climate change education in schools, but only five states have climate or sustainability curricular or instructional requirements for K-12 students. In 2020, New Jersey became the first state to mandate the teaching of climate change across all subjects, from kindergarten to grade 12. Two years later, Connecticut passed a similar requirement, with Oregon following in 2025.
As of this spring, New York State has joined them.
The New York State of mindful climate education
This past March, the New York State Board of Regents approved a statewide climate education mandate, placing climate education as an instructional requirement across all content areas, from kindergarten to grade 12. After a phasing-in period, all schools will have to submit verification to the state that as students move through grades K-4, 5-8 and 9-12, they’ve had some sort of climate education instruction that teaches the causes, impacts and solutions to climate change.
“They allow a lot of flexibility in terms of how it can be implemented, so it could either be through embedded instruction, which can be infused into required courses and subject areas, like science, math, social studies, etc.,” says Emily Fano, director of climate education at the National Wildlife Federation, who helped make this requirement a reality. “Or teachers can create a standalone course. It’s all about what schools have time for and what teachers have time to prep. It really also depends on how informed principals and superintendents are.”
This change comes as part of the state education department (NYSED)’s current revamp of its educational framework. “They are trying to transform education and make it more project-based, more interdisciplinary,” says Fano. “It’s a new philosophy of learning, which is more student-centered, more focused on critical thinking and global citizenship. And climate education is part of [that vision].”
Fano and a group of roughly 200 partner organizations had been working tirelessly over the past several years to get something like this mandate passed. They first tried legislation as the path forward. They got as far as having a bill introduced in the Senate and Assembly, only to watch it linger and die. “So we decided to partner with the state education department,” says Fano. “And in November 2025, the Board of Regents announced that they were proposing this climate education requirement.”
Fano is quick to point out that this “instructional requirement” is not a curriculum—“the state does not mandate curricula, nor does it develop them,” she says. “They leave that up to the districts. Instead, they implement policy.”
She says she’s happy that the state has clearly stated that climate change is “decided science and not a political issue, so they’re not going to entertain denialism.” Instead, the requirement will explore solutions to the environmental impacts of climate change. Just like the findings of the UNESCO study, students in New York want to know what actionable steps they can take, says Fano.
Though thrilled by this big step forward, Fano says one big disappointment is that the state has not yet allocated funds to support the requirement. “We had asked the state for $536,000 for the climate education initiative specifically, which is still nothing. It’s the same amount of money that was given to a golf tournament in last year’s budget, so we’re very disappointed,” says Fano. “There’s nothing like an unfunded mandate for it to fail.”
But Fano says she and her colleagues will keep pushing forward for funding for teacher training. Resources are also beginning to emerge, including the NYC Midwinter Climate Institute, which equips educators with tools and strategies for implementing interdisciplinary climate education.“We’re pleased that NYSED is going to be working on guidance documents for educators. They’re assembling a working committee of experts in the field that will advise them on creating basically crosswalks for educators,” says Fano. “That should be out hopefully in the next few months.”
One campus sets an example
On Earth Day, April 22, one NYC campus announced a new sustainability update: Barnard College had decided to add a “Thinking Ecologically and Sustainably” requirement to its Foundations curriculum. Although Barnard’s new requirement applies to college students, it reflects the same philosophy guiding New York’s K–12 mandate: that preparing students for a changing climate means integrating ecological thinking across subjects.
As defined by its creators, this addition considers “the interconnectedness between humans and other living and nonliving things…[and] requires creativity and critical inquiry as we consider past and present narratives, practices, and policies, and develop and express what it means to foster healthy and sustainable communities and ecosystems.”
It took years of work for the interdisciplinary requirement to get approved, but with over 90 percent of Barnard students already taking sustainability-related or sustainability-focused courses without a requirement, it became clear to the faculty that the time was now to incorporate this mode of thinking into the Foundations curriculum, says Barnard professor of education María Rivera Maulucci, who is part of the group that spearheaded its creation. “That was a really important piece of data that helped us know that we were ready to implement this mode,” she says.
At the moment, at least 149 courses at Barnard, across multiple disciplines, can be described as sustainability-related or sustainability-focused, says Rivera Maulucci. The new mode will be implemented with the entering class of 2027, so between now and then, “all the courses that will be tagged for the new mode will go through our committee on instruction for approval.”
The beauty of this mode of thinking, its proponents say, is its cross-disciplinary nature. “I’m very happy if students move into the climate field, but my actual hope for this mode of thinking is that they take these capacities and these understandings into whatever field they go into,” says Sandra Goldmark, associate dean for engagement and impact at Columbia Climate School and formerly a professor at Barnard. “We want our entire workforce to be able to engage thoughtfully with these questions, not just a few climate experts.”
Like students around the globe, young people at Barnard are hungry for this knowledge. “One of the other pieces of data we looked at was what percentage of students in a particular major had [already] satisfied this mode,” says Rivera Maulucci. “With our 2026 grads, we found that 100% of Africana studies majors had done so, 100% of American studies, 100% of art history, 80% of Asian studies… you can go down the list, but all these high percentages show that students are finding ways to explore sustainability either inside or outside their majors.”
Goldmark and Rivera Maulucci think the inclusion of this new requirement will also act as an incentive for faculty to level up their own approach to teaching. “When we introduced the ‘Thinking Technologically and Digitally’ requirement at Barnard, I thought, let me make sure I’m teaching this right, let me give it a little bit more attention. So it helped me raise my game in that area,” says Goldmark.
As a parent of two NYC high schoolers, Goldmark is particularly thrilled to see both the state’s climate education mandate and the Barnard requirement passed this year. “I feel like it’s my job to try and equip these kids for what they’re going to face when they leave our campus, and I am 110% certain that the ability to think ecologically and sustainably and make decisions that take into account climate, Earth and society is a skill that we can teach and must be teaching for students of all ages.”
