Aaron Karp recently authored the entry on “Educating for Climate Activism, Autonomy, and System Change” in the Encyclopedia of Educational Innovation (Springer, 2022). In it, he highlights the literacies that need to be built into the curriculum as well as the importance of a broader cultivation of autonomy and focus on system change in education. You can read the full entry here and an excerpt below.
This curriculum model contains five content areas that aim to analyze the major forces that give rise to today’s existential problems and their solutions: ecological systems, energy sources and technology, economic institutions, power structures and politics, and social movement-driven societal change. It envisions the development of literacy in each area and an understanding of the connections between them. This model could be used to guide curriculum development for current educators as well as courses in teacher education.
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To meet growing calls for system change, climate curriculums need to synthesize several disciplines. The broad literacies described above provide a foundation that can help students grasp the multiple dimensions of the climate crisis. By remaining focused on the goal of cultivating autonomy, educators can prepare students to become activists who are capable of reshaping the interconnected systems at the root of the problem.
