Abstract: The West Virginia Climate Change Professional Development (WVCCPD) Project was developed in 2019 as an effort to engage West Virginia K-12 teachers and informal educators in climate change professional development to encourage learning and action. Started by astronomy educators who are passionate about climate change, the project has been an experiment that has iteratively grown each year. By bringing in social science experts, communication specialists, community activists, master teachers, and learning how to best support teachers and their students through misconceptions and empowering action, we have engaged over 130 W.Va. educators. WVCCPD represents a promising case study for how educators can come together across disciplines and institutions to build an engaging climate change learning community, even in West Virginia, an area that is known for fossil fuel extraction. We hope this paper informs other teacher education practitioners.
Continue ReadingIn this program and practices feature, we describe two different models of teacher professional development designed to help teachers build their own energy literacy while gaining tools to bring energy literacy to their classrooms. Through a review of the literature we identify principles by which to compare and evaluate the two approaches. Both were successful in helping teachers to build energy literacy; each had a mix of advantages and disadvantages when compared to the literature.
Continue Reading
Journal of Sustainability Education is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License. 
