It is important that we prepare tomorrow’s scientists, decision makers, and communities to address the societal impacts of a changing climate. In order to respond to, manage, and adapt to those changes, citizens of all ages need accurate, up-to-date information, knowledge of the sciences, and analytical skills to make responsible decisions and long-term resiliency plans regarding these challenging topics. The Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN, http://cleanet.org) is 1) providing teaching resources for educators through the CLEAN Collection and pedagogical support for teaching climate and energy science; and 2) facilitating a professionally diverse community of climate and energy literacy stakeholders, called the CLEAN Network, to share and leverage efforts to extend the reach and effectiveness of climate and energy education. This presentation will provide an overview of the CLEAN web portal and techniques we have used to market it. We will showcase the CLEAN Collection, which is comprised of 700+ resources (curricula, activities, videos, visualizations, and demonstrations/experiments) that have been reviewed for scientific accuracy, pedagogical effectiveness, and technical quality. Recent activities of the CLEAN Network will be highlighted. We will present findings from our web analytics work, which monitors visitor use of the CLEAN web portal. Through analytics data, we will show evidence of successful CLEAN marketing efforts. The results of our recent pop-up survey, which has been completed by CLEAN visitors from six continents, will also be discussed. Survey results will provide detailed information about how our audiences use the web portal. We anticipate that our insights from the CLEAN network can aid other climate and energy education programs in effectively increasing the visibility of their vital work.

The impacts of climate change are being felt across the country, with wildfire seasons getting longer and more severe and flooding occurring more frequently. Colorado has experienced significant extreme weather events in the last ten years and, consequently, has begun a statewide effort to incorporate resilience into short- and long-term planning across state and local governments. As cities and counties undergo resilience planning processes, today’s students (tomorrow’s leaders) are often unaware of these efforts and are left out of the planning process. The HEART Force curriculum empowers students with the knowledge needed to participate (and lead) the resilience conversation in their own community, with place-based hazard education that includes a scenario-based role-play game and design thinking to create resilience strategies in their community. The curricular unit culminates with a resilience expo, where students engage with community members as resilience experts and share their ideas. HEART is a novel approach in that it uses several current instructional strategies (place-based learning, project-based learning, gamification, and design thinking) to empower students to engage with their community. If students want to implement their resilience projects that arise from the curriculum, mini-grants are available to fund projects. The HEART program is currently in its second year of piloting in rural and urban Colorado schools. We will present preliminary evaluation findings and share curriculum and program design strategies.

Rural communities in Colorado face different challenges than urban areas when responding to the impacts of climate change. While these communities may not have access to the financial resources and planning infrastructure that large cities do, close community ties and an entrepreneurial can-do attitude give these communities an advantage to create opportunities for meaningful classroom community engagement. HEART Force is a unique program for secondary students in rural Colorado formal learning settings that educates and empowers students to respond to climate change impacts in the face of increasing likelihood and severity of environmental hazards such as wildfires, floods and drought. The program supports youth partnership with community leaders and experts to build resilience through a three-pronged approach using a curriculum designed to support NGSS. Students begin the unit by learning about the science of environmental hazards and how these hazards will be affected by climate change through analysis of local data. Next, students learn how to manage and respond to hazards in their community in a scenario-based role-play game. The unit culminates in a community resilience expo, giving students the opportunity to address impacts from environmental hazards by developing, presenting, and implementing strategies to increase community resilience. We will share the program design, lessons learned from teacher professional development and support, and preliminary research findings on the program impacts on students and teachers.

Environmental hazards such as wildfire, flood, and drought impact communities throughout Colorado. As climate change ramps up, these environmental hazards are increasing in frequency and severity. These hazards and their impacts provide an excellent access point for students to explore earth science concepts and community well being. The Hazard Education Awareness and Resilience Task Force (HEART Force) is a program for secondary classrooms in rural Colorado designed to help teachers and students move beyond classroom instruction and empower them to lead local efforts to increase resilience to environmental hazards. Colorado has recently adapted and adopted NGSS which provide opportunities for students to engage in real world learning through exploring locally relevant phenomena, yet many classroom teachers are challenged to transition to a new style of teaching driven by student inquiry. With this transition, teachers are being asked to give up some control of the learning process and become facilitators rather than directors of learning. In order to successfully facilitate authentic student engagement, a network of community partners is essential to support students, as well as a supportive school administration and a high level of teacher comfort with risk and uncertainty. The HEART Force program is in the third year of implementation; here we share lessons learned and challenges in supporting teachers in this transition to student-led and community-based learning using resilience education.