Climate kNOWledge for 6th Grade HCPSS students
Student research and action to reduce the impacts of the climate change emergency
Thanks to funding from NOAA B-Wet, a district-wide climate change curriculum with a meaningful watershed educational experience is being developed with the Howard County Public School System. By August 2023, every sixth grade Howard County Public School System student and teacher will be engaged in robust hands-on climate science and climate justice lessons in and out of the classroom, the first program of its kind in the region. Weaving together environmental justice, STEM, and real data, this program will directly address one of the biggest challenges facing future generations.
Curriculum Highlights:
Climate Justice: How and why are communities impacted differently by climate change?
– Students learn how socioeconomic factors can determine the kind of environment in which you grow up particularly how hot your neighborhood gets
– Redlining: The now-illegal banking practice of only giving home loans to white families
– Flooding and the urban heat island effect
Climate Solutions: What mitigation and/or adaptation strategies can we use?
– Examine what Howard County and Maryland are doing to reduce our environmental impact
– Compare to other action plans for reducing flooding and urban heat island impact
Field Activities
Field activities support the MWEE Model!
Schoolyard data collection:
– Carbon sequestration
– Urban Heat Island
– Soil Permeability
Climate Expedition: Journey to Solutions
– Climate Justice
– Hidden Carbon Cafe
– Climate Xpedition Hike
Sixth Grade Climate Change Solutionists
Sixth grade students are invited to participate in a weekend fall enrichment program hosted by the Howard County Conservancy. The Climate Change Solutionists will meet 4 Sundays in the fall with mentors from the Howard County Conservancy and a team of high school Climate Change Ambassadors from the Youth Climate Institute. Solutionists work to build a better understanding of climate change science and prepare to implement action projects at their schools.
Program Partners:
