One of the unique demands of the workforce of the future will be in industries dealing with the impact of climate change. This imperative is squarely on the radar of leaders and educators in Colorado, who are now championing state policies that support youth career development in “green” occupations.

The 74 recently partnered with the Progressive Policy Institute on a new installment of the “Future of High Schools” webinar series, which highlighted the Climatarium initiative of nonprofit group Lyra, which brings together education, industry, and policy partners to build climate-related college and career pathways for Colorado students.

In the replay below, you’ll hear from experts Mary Seawell, CEO and Founder of Lyra, Colorado State Senator Chris Hansen, and Dr. Karen Cheser, Superintendent of Durango School District. Watch the full conversation:

Recent coverage of career pathways and climate education from The 74:

• Creating a Climate-Literate Workforce in Colorado, Starting in Middle School

• Howard: Universal climate education can teach students how to preserve the planet today and train them for the green jobs of tomorrow

• “This Is the Existential Crisis”: A Push for Climate Change Education

• 6 Tips for Spotting a High School That Best Prepares Teens for Their Futures

Every child must be educated about the environment and climate change, not only in science classes, but as a subject integrated throughout all classrooms — be it reading a short story on wildfires in an English class, calculating fossil fuel emissions in math or creating stunning posters and imagery about the state of the planet’s plastic crisis in art. Education inspires curiosity and fires up imaginations.

The power of art was recently brought vividly to life with the , which saw the artwork of two students shine — Luke Pohl Bogdan, from Maryland, who won the 5-to-17 age group with an entry titled Sparring Earth, and Teague Smith, from Idaho, who was the 18+ age group winner with a Plastic Trash Shark.

For both students, taking part in the competition was a way of speaking up about an issue they care about while embracing a subject they love — in this case, art.

“It made me really proud to win the poster competition, as this is the start of my artistic journey,” said Luke. “Plastics are destroying Earth and harming animals. We must act before Earth becomes a big waste pile. I like to draw action cartoons, and we need action to save Earth from plastics.”

For Teague it was the seas that he specifically wanted to focus on. ”I chose to spotlight the oceans in my poster because they’re disproportionately affected by plastic pollution,” Teague explained. “Plastics present a significant threat to our planet’s ecosystems, emphasizing the urgent need for action.”

The competition exposed the students to three important aspects of climate education that EarthDay.org presented at the in Denver on March 20 and will be a key part of a released April 8.

First, it gave them an outlet for expressing their concerns about the climate, which is an important way for them to deal with their anxiety about the very real and documented climate crisis. Second, it reinforced , which trains them to make the right choices for the planet by using less energy and resources and being much more mindful of pollution and land and water degradation. And third, it highlighted the skills and enthusiasm young people will need to fill critical jobs in a green economy — increasingly referred to as the green-collar workforce.

Dennis Nolasco, a member of EarthDay.org’s education team, helped ease his students’ climate anxiety when he was a teacher in California and wildfires devastated the landscape. Realizing that climate change is not something far off in the future, but here and now, he designed a unit for his eighth-grade English class around climate change, and they were fascinated by it. 

He asked them to read a series of short stories about other extreme weather events and then challenged them to write their own about what they had just experienced with the wildfires. They then read their stories out in class, and he led a discussion about how these made them feel and what they revealed about the changing climate.

“I was slightly amazed to see how much information they soaked up from local news as we began discussing the causes of the fires,” Nolasco said. “Most importantly, the students asked  — will the fires be back? I learned that the truth is powerful. Those students benefited from having the time and space to understand the world around them.”

Lessons like these also counter misinformation about climate change. The science is in — it is real. Teaching that is critical. To further help promote the cause of climate education, our organization has just released a as a call to action for every state to assess where it is right now and where it needs to get to in terms of climate education. Clicking on each state produces a list of what is taught about the climate and what specific issues that state is facing. It also suggests whom people can write to if they want to press for climate education as a mandated topic at state level.

“One of the things we realized after visiting a lot of schools locally, in Virginia and Maryland, is that parents, teachers and students really wanted to know what their own home state was teaching on climate education and then compare it to what other states were teaching — or even if they were teaching it at all,” said Emily Walker, an EarthDay.Org education coordinator.

At the college level, the organization is working with student groups to help them advocate for environmental causes on their own campuses, with plans to roll out teach-ins throughout April. 

With Earth Day on April 22, there’s never been a better time to advocate for teaching the next generation about the climate crisis and giving them the tools they will need to cope with it. Climate education can play a critically important role in saving the planet.

From Oct. 31 through Nov. 12, roughly 20,000 international leaders and climate advocates will gather in Glasgow, Scotland for the conference known as COP26. The next annual meeting is an opportunity to shape global climate priorities — during COP21, which took place in 2015, the landmark Paris Agreement was adopted to limit global warming. 

This year’s conference is hosted by the United Kingdom, where climate and girls’ education has been prioritized over the last year. In 2021 the country led both the and Summit. In May, G7 countries reinforced political commitments for girls’ education, reaffirming that it’s a human right and setting two goals for the global community by 2026: 40 million more girls in school and 20 million more girls reading by age 10 or the end of primary school.

“There’s a lot of pressure on this COP to accelerate progress on the Paris Agreement and there will be some progress. However, I think the question will be: ‘is it enough?’” Naomi Nyamweya, a lead researcher with the Malala Fund, told The 74 by email. “Leaving girls behind undermines gender equality and governments’ ability to deliver on ”

Climate crises will prevent an estimated 4 million girls in lower- and middle- income countries from accessing education in 2021, according to the . With current policy and emission trends, weather-related disruptions will prevent 12.5 million girls from finishing their education by 2025. 

“We need leaders to see that climate change, girls’ education and gender equality aren’t separate issues,” Nyamweya added.

Quality, compulsory education for girls may to facilitate climate action, like literacy and critical thinking. And if climate curricula is prioritized alongside access to schools, young leaders can understand value in solutions that move beyond one-off, technical swaps to renewable energy, for example. Millions more can learn to assess climate threats and their root causes and support policies to curb poverty and environmental racism. 

An of countries with female political representation found that they are more likely to adopt stricter climate policies and have fewer carbon emissions. The findings further solidify arguments that investing in girls’ education and their pathways to leadership will yield positive outcomes for the earth. 

Countries can also build stronger, low-carbon economies with more girls’ educated and entering the workforce. Particularly if their education includes, as advocates and hope, career and technical . 

Climate change, and any possible solutions, are becoming harder to ignore. 

Despite at past climate talks, many countries are not currently naming climate change education, or girls’ education, as part of their policy strategy. of recently updated ‘Nationally Determined Contributions’ (NDCs) from 73 countries revealed that less than a quarter mention youth or children and none call for mandatory climate change education as a strategy, including the ’s plan.

While NDCs are not the “end-all-be-all” of climate policy, they are the most visible, guiding document for nations to support Paris Agreement goals, says researcher Christina Kwauk, who penned the report and is a nonresident fellow with the Brookings Institute. 

If girls’ education continues to be omitted from the documents, she told The 74, the priority will likely be overlooked in subsequent policies, strategies and initiatives — like expanding career and vocational training for green jobs or leadership.

“Girls’ education is going to be collateral damage from climate change, if we’re not paying attention to it. From the research we know that investing in girls’ education can be a powerful climate solution, why aren’t we talking about these two hand in hand?” Kwauk said. “If our education system isn’t helping us to address those structural and systemic aspects of the climate crisis, we will have wasted some really valuable years.”

If quality girls’ education and reproductive health care are provided over the next 30 years, (mass roughly equal to 16 billion elephants) of carbon dioxide emissions could be avoided, according to researchers with the international nonprofit , who estimate the impact of particular climate solutions. That is over four times more impactful than increasing concentrated solar power in the same timeframe.

Advocates caution against using Project Drawdown’s oft-quoted measure of impact as the sole driver for expanding girls’ education. 

“Many stakeholders link girls’ education to reducing emissions, due to decreased fertility rates, however this places the burden of mitigating climate change on those least responsible for its cause and undermines a rights-based approach. We advocate for girls’ education as it is their right, and can equip them with the skills and knowledge to take climate action, adapt to impacts, be more resilient and engage in policy processes,” Plan International’s Jessica Cooke, a London-based expert in climate change and resilience programming, told The 74 via email. 

Cooke will attend the U.N. conference this year with colleagues and youth activists to call for transformative education policy that advances both climate and gender justice. 

“A gender-transformative education can equip girls with the skills and knowledge needed to tackle the climate crisis, claim and exercise their rights, and empower them to be leaders and decision-makers, including by challenging the systems and norms which reinforce gender, climate, racial and social injustices around the world,” Cooke added. 

Roughly one third of girls don’t currently feel confident participating in climate policy processes, fewer boys feel the same hesitancy — about 25 percent, a recent Plan International revealed. And over 80 percent of youth surveyed in 37 nations, including the U.S., say that they don’t know anything about their country’s climate policy and that efforts to include them in decision making are insufficient. 

More womens’ rights and feminist organizations are pushing for climate education policy as they begin to “see climate justice as a key aspect of work for gender equality,” said Bridget Burns, director of Women’s Environment & Development Organization. Her group partners with U.N. and government agencies as advisors on intersectional policy. 

Similar thinking is underway at the U.S. federal level on the eve of the conference. At the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration, Frank Niepold leads climate education efforts and holds a singular leadership role for the U.S. with the UN’s Action for Climate Empowerment. He served as a U.S. delegate to the 2015 climate conference.

Niepold told The 74 that he’s searching for ways to collaborate with other agencies to support girls’ education as a key climate strategy. The infrastructure for dialogue leaves something to be desired. Beyond the climate talks — which are focused on the national level — there is not an existing support system for international groups to collaborate with sub-national agencies like his, which implements policies to protect the environment.

“A gender equity focus on educational programming at the federal level — it is missing,” he said, but added, “I think it’s emerging.”

Niepold confirmed that education remains on the negotiating table for this year’s talks. 

Many are closely watching to see what the U.S. prioritizes during and following the conference, especially given that President Biden’s key . The president originally planned to tout the move — to replace coal and gas power plants with wind, solar and nuclear energy sources — as an example of his country’s commitment to climate solutions and infrastructure.

In 2017, former President Trump pledged to drop out of the Paris accord; the U.S. was the first country in the world to . At the last in-person climate talks in 2019, over whether his re-election would further block meaningful climate action globally. President Biden has since made the current administration’s position on climate change clear, rejoining the agreement in February 2021. 

The Aspen Institute’s Laura Schifter, who’s heading up a new to make school infrastructure more sustainable, remains hopeful that the nation is now prepared to back more education-centered climate solutions. 

“The U.S. has the potential of really being an international leader in this space,” she said. “We have the administration right now committed to climate issues, we have schools across the country who have been experiencing climate impacts. We have a real need … the time is really right for education to mobilize and start taking climate action.”