ACTION PLAYBOOK:
Require Climate Education
The Goal: Urge your state board of education to require climate change curriculum in statewide education standards and to train educators on how to teach about the climate crisis. In the meantime, local school boards should voluntarily adopt climate education criteria.
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Our nation’s decentralized education system means K-12 students are learning radically different information about the climate crisis depending on where they live. For over half a century, this has often allowed fossil fuel industry propaganda to seep into school classrooms. But our elected officials can change that. Our local school boards have direct influence over educational requirements in our local districts, while states can mandate climate change education statewide to lock in robust standards for years to come.
How long does it take? Only 10 minutes to edit and send a few emails that could help stop the neighborhood kids from being indoctrinated by Big Oil.
Action Preview
Email your local school board
Email your state board of education
Ask a friend to do this too!
Let’s take action.
1. Email your local school board representative(s)
To maximize our chances of making an impact, we want to tackle this problem at two levels of government. First, we’ll contact local school board representatives:
Find the email addresses: Use this tool to find your school board reps. At the top, type your address then click one of the bolded search results which represent schools in your district. Scroll down for the board members’ contact information and click the little blue envelope icon on the right to grab their email addresses. Copy all of your local board members’ emails and paste them into your email sender (we recommend sending individual emails).
Draft an email: Next, copy/paste the template below into a blank email to your local school board member(s) or click the link to populate a new email if you have an email app setup. Either way, make this email personalized to you! Please bcc advocacy@climatechangemakers.org so we can make note of our collective impact.
Template below to copy ⬇️ or click to populate in your email app.
bcc: advocacy@climatechangemakers.org
SUBJECT: Preparing students for a changing climate
Hi, my name is [NAME], a constituent from [YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD/DISTRICT].
I’m writing to advocate for improvements in climate change education in our local schools, above and beyond what is specified in the state standards, and for professional development on climate change to equip our teachers accordingly. As we navigate the challenges of the 21st century, it's crucial that our students are equipped with accurate knowledge and understanding about changes happening in our environment that will affect their lives.
Ensuring that our students are educated about climate change isn’t just about honing their science skills; it’s about preparing them for the future. By understanding the impacts of climate change, they can become better informed citizens, capable of making decisions that benefit both our community and the planet as a whole.
As a constituent, this especially matters to me because [WHY DO YOU CARE?]. I truly believe the next generation's innovation, adaptability, and resilience in a changing world will be critical to ensuring we don’t just survive our future, but thrive in it.
(Include if you’re comfortable!) If you're interested, I’d love to discuss this further during [A PHONE CALL OR COFFEE]. Please reply via email or by phone at [###-###-####].
Thank you for your dedication to our community’s education.
Sincerely,
Did you customize the email? bcc: advocacy@climatechangemakers.org? Hit send! ✅
If you receive a response, drop us a line at advocacy@climatechangemakers.org and let us know what they said. We’re happy to help with next steps if you’re interested in continuing the conversation.
2. Email your state board of education
Now find an email address for your representative on the state board of education. (State boards of education are responsible for setting statewide curriculum standards, and they are typically distinct from the state department of education, which is an executive agency).
Find the email addresses: You’ll need to Google “[your state] + contact state board of education” and find a “Contact Us” page on your state BOE website (look for a URL that ends in .gov). If possible, identify an email address for the specific person on the school board who represents your home address.
Note: A few states don’t call it a “board of education.” Minnesota’s SBOE is just part of the MN Department of Education, Wisconsin has a Department of Public Instruction, and New York has a Board of Regents.
Draft an email: Next, copy/paste the template below into a blank email to your state board of education member(s) or click the link to populate a new email if you have an email app setup. Ensure you are using the correct template for the recipient—this one is different from the local school board template. Remember to customize the bracketed sections and please bcc advocacy@climatechangemakers.org.
Template below to copy ⬇️ or click to populate in your email app.
bcc: advocacy@climatechangemakers.org
SUBJECT: Preparing students for a changing climate
Hi, my name is [NAME], a constituent from [YOUR TOWN/CITY].
I’m writing to advocate for the strengthening of the treatment of climate change in our state’s science standards, for the inclusion of climate change in our state’s non-science standards (as New Jersey has notably accomplished), and for the provision of professional development on climate change for our state’s teachers to enable them to comply with these improvements. As we navigate the challenges of the 21st century, it's crucial that our students are equipped with accurate knowledge and understanding about changes happening in our environment that will affect all of our lives.
Ensuring that our students are educated about climate change isn’t just about honing their science skills; it’s about preparing them for the future. By understanding the impacts of climate change, they can become better informed citizens, capable of making decisions that benefit both our community and the planet as a whole. As a constituent, this especially matters to me because [WHY DO YOU CARE?].
(Keep below paragraph only if your state is TEAL on this map —or— if you live in NY or MA): I appreciate that our state has adopted robust science standards that include climate change. But there is certainly room for improvement in these science standards. Plus, the consequences of climate change are so serious and so pervasive that they merit attention in non-science classrooms, and our teachers need to be prepared accordingly.
(Keep below paragraph only if your state is BEIGE or GRAY on the map linked above): I truly believe the next generation's innovation, adaptability, and resilience in a changing world will be critical to ensuring we don’t just survive our future, but thrive in it. In order to prepare them to do so, it is necessary to improve the treatment of climate change in our state science standards and to incorporate climate change across the disciplines; and teachers need to be equipped to teach in accordance.
(Include if you’re comfortable!) If you're interested, I’d love to discuss this further during [A PHONE CALL OR COFFEE]. Please reply via email or by phone at [###-###-####].
Sincerely,
Did you customize the email? bcc: advocacy@climatechangemakers.org? Hit send! ✅
Again, if you receive a response, forward it to advocacy@climatechangemakers.org to let us know.
3. Ask a friend to do it, too
Network effects are powerful. Persuading friends and family to take climate action is a crucial step toward changing cultural norms and making real progress. Now that you’ve contacted your local school board rep and the state board of education, send a note to a friend along with this playbook asking them to email their own elected officials. Bonus points if you happen to know someone who has real clout with their local or state government and you feel comfortable asking them. For this particular action, you might consider your educational connections—fellow alumni; former teachers, professors, or administrators; or others in an academic network.
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If you’d like to explore deeper involvement in keeping fossil fuels out of your local curriculum, consider running for school board. Check out XQ’s “Get Active with Your Local School Board” resources to find out how.
That’s it! Feel accomplished.
And cue confetti 👇🎉
Congrats, you just took productive climate action.
Or maybe you haven’t yet, and you just skipped down to this section. In any case, here’s some additional info to learn more about the problem we’ve got on our hands.
Learn by watching
(28 minutes)
Our friends at Climate Town create incredible (and very funny) videos about climate change and we provide specific actions to go with them! The Action Playbook you’re reading right now was made specifically for this Climate Town episode. Watch it to learn all about oil propaganda in schools, then come back here to take action.
Learning by reading
(3 minutes)
The fossil fuel industry has exerted considerable influence on American K-12 public education for decades now. In their quest to shape the narrative around the use of fossil fuels and the reality of climate change, oil and gas companies have deployed a range of tactics to insert themselves into the classroom. A significant part of this endeavor has been the production of propaganda materials, like the 1956 American Petroleum Institute-funded cartoon "Destination Earth," which lauded America's use of cars, or Exxon's 1985 collaboration with Disney to create a cartoon praising American oil.
As climate change gained traction in public discourse in the late 1980s, the industry adopted more covert tactics. Despite having conducted advanced studies on climate change and understanding its implications, leading oil companies like Exxon shifted toward a strategy of fostering climate change denial. Internal memos reveal efforts to position anthropogenic global warming as merely a theory, rather than a proven phenomenon. To further this agenda, oil companies funded local groups to promote climate skepticism, created games and programs that de-emphasize the effects of fossil fuel extraction, and even influenced textbooks to reshape the narrative around climate change. The industry's involvement extended to state education standards, with entities like the Texas Energy Council, which represents oil and gas companies, attending school board meetings to downplay climate science education.
Despite the continued pervasive influence of the fossil fuel industry, there’s been a growing pushback against their narrative. Twenty states have adopted the Next Generation Science Standards, which include a robust treatment of climate change. A 2020 study conducted by the National Center for Science Education and the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund graded each state’s science standards based on the quality of their treatment of climate change: 27 states (including the 20 NGSS states) scored a B+ or better.
But the industry's long-standing influence has been so profound that it will likely require more than the status quo to undo. In order to dismantle the influence of fossil fuel’s corporate interests in the classroom, states should codify climate change curriculum requirements into statewide education standards beyond science classrooms (as New Jersey has done). In the meantime, school boards can help generate momentum within their states by adopting or improving their own climate education programs. And that’s where we come in!
