Geoffrey, thanks for your post!
I hear you -- being an informal educator who is now deeply involved in our town's open space system. I am confronted with the question of how to involve our youth all the time. I am choosing to work locally now, because I think it is the best way for me to try to make an impact.

Like in most towns, adults are making the decisions that our youth will have to live with. Just last night at our Open Space Board of Trustees meeting, we heard from the teenagers who have participated in our Junior Ranger program. They have become self-confident individuals who appreciate the value of working with a team, and they have grown to deeply care about our open space system. My question to them was: Are you ready to form a "working group" to delve into one of the challenges of our system (e.g. invasive species, dog management, etc) and give us your recommendations? They seemed to say yes -- and I think it's the responsibility of all the adults in the room now to craft a next level of involvement and the kinds of multidisciplinary learning experiences -- and give them some responsibility -- for them to continue to develop the skills and capabilities and understandings that will enable them to add their voices regarding how we solve problems and move into a more sustainable future.
I'm not sure that the adults are all willing to turn over some responsibility to youth, but I think it's essential for them to learn and for us to gain from their insights and different perspectives.
I'd love to hear from others who work in informal education re what you are doing and think needs to be done to advance youth's growth and involvement!

Thanks for the resource, Susan!

Thanks all for your good comments and links! There was another message in what I was trying to convey.

I wonder why local (Mo.) science teachers do not seem to be engaged the earth science aspects (environmental physics and chemistry) of climate change to later (10-12) secondary students. While biology can lead to profound environmental change (stromatolites and oxygen in the atmosphere), rapid large changes in the geochemical and physical environments from physical causes also have great influence. Would it not make sense to invest educational resources in this opportunity to positively affect our sustainability?

As I tried to explain, this group (grades 10-12) will be maturing professionals and mentors of the earlier grades that will be the environmental scientists during a time when both environmental and cultural change will be important.

It could be that local school boards and school districts or even teachers view climate change as a political topic and are unwilling to go there. It could be that the actual mechanisms and basic science of climate change is interdisciplinary and difficult for most secondary teachers to teach.
I have looked at some climate change orgs (climate reality, …) and have come to the conclusion that being a member of eepro standards would conflict with being part of an advocacy organization. On the other side I have taken some MOOC classes on climate change (Johan Rockstrom’s Planetary Boundaries https://courses.edx.org/courses/course-v1:SDGAcademyX+PB001+3T2018/course/ and climate Science Denial https://courses.edx.org/courses/course-v1:UQx+Denial101x+3T2018/course/ ).

As my observations are anecdotal, I am unsure of their generality beyond my immediate experience. Please tell me what you think.
As a solution I see 2 coupled solutions;
1. Help science teacher’s master the biogeochemical aspects and physical aspects of climate change science.
2. Have the ability to teach climate change as basic science thus disarming the political aspects of warming to denial of basic science.

Would this be an appropriate subject that might interest others as a conference poster session or item that others would be interested in?

Just so everyone knows, I am trying to figure out where I can fit in to environmental education and I was sharing some thoughts and assumptions. I was trying to take an adaptive management approach to the educational system from the bottom up, not be overly critical of any one profession or persons.

I think if it was an easy problem to solve it would not be a problem. Maybe I should think about opening up the belief/political space a bit. I don’t really like the idea of advocacy, but maybe to increase environmental literacy of climate change within the adult population and see how to do that while keeping within excellence standards is the best route for me. This is not what I expected, so I will look there next. I wanted to thank everybody and wish everyone happy holidays!

Thank you everyone for the great resources and ideas! I teach 9th grade Biology and there is a very wide gap in what the students know about climate these days! I think one of our biggest hurdles as educators, traditional and non-traditional alike, is to bridge the gap between what we do in our classrooms and the real world applications our students can take with them into the world. I know we all want to believe that we as teachers explain why something is important and that should suffice, but the reality is that it's not enough. We really have to dig in and make it matter for these kids. We need to explain how oil production and prices will affect their lives in a meaningful way, or how greenhouse gas emissions and regulations not only affect the air they breathe but the price of the products they use on a daily basis. As someone else mentioned climate science is just science, and should be taught as such but we have this whole new political element to deal with.

So the question is, how do we as educators bridge that gap of relevance and make meaningful connections for our students between the content we are teaching and how they can use it in the future. The most common thing I hear from students when they aren't getting something or are struggling to be interested in a topic is "When am I ever going to use this after this class?" I think can another bigger issue is that students don't think they can make a difference in their world. Imparting skills and knowledge they can take with them for future education or professions is a tall order, but the missing piece is their acceptance that they can do something about what they care about in the world, and getting them to connect that desire to the content in our classes.

One thing that I did when I taught Environmental Science in Milwaukee we did a science fair project on the water quality of the Milawaukee River. They complained about the water being dirty, so I turned it around on them (juniors and seniors) and asked, what can you do about it? They said, test the water and see what's in it. So they did it. Then I asked, what next? So they contacted a representative of the WI DNR to learn more about water quality maintenance and how'd they could apply what they'd learned outside of my classroom. This is unfortunately not the case most of the time, but what let's discuss ways that we can bridge the gap between content and real life? What do you do in your classroom or at your center to reach your students/guests in order to connect climate concepts to real-world action?

Hi Geoffrey (and everyone on the thread), I know that your original post was from quite some time ago, but this thread just popped into my mailbox today. I am a Ph.D. student and this is very closely related to my proposed dissertation topic. I work with climate education in traditional k-12 school environments with a focus of the teachers' role in disseminating information to their students. I have previously held multiple informal education positions and will pull from both my research and personal experience surrounding this topic. In one of your post, you had asked: "why local (Mo.) science teachers do not seem to be engaged the earth science aspects." I can ensure you that this is not just an issue in MO but in many if not all states. The majority of science teachers have never themselves been taught about climate or earth science, and if they have been exposed to these topics, it is briefly and often in a basic level science methods course. If you look at only elementary teachers, they are even less like than their middle and high school counterparts.
Teachers often hold many misconceptions and incomplete conceptions about the Earths' climate system, pair this with an overwhelming number of unvetted climate curriculums and resources this creates a network of confusion for both the teacher and the student. At this point, unless mandated, some teachers may just opt-out of teaching climate topics at all. Many teachers may appear unengaged due to the complexity and lack of understanding of the subject. In regards to, "climate change as a political topic and are unwilling to go there." Yes, however, in my experience, this is more an issue of framing the topic. I have lived in multiple conservative states where climate change denial was quite high compared to the US as a whole. I was able to teacher climate without issue. I frame it as that climate science, not climate change. I have never taught the topic of climate change directly but rather teach the science behind climate, the skills needed to interpret the data, how to ask questions, make claims, and provide evidence. In my role as an educator, I don't give the students an answer rather just the skills to find one on their own. Now when a student proposes a claim on either side, I question and make them provided their evidence. In this way, you can guide them to the scientific fact. My research group and I are currently working on publishing a few articles in this area, and I would be happy to share once completed. These are just some of my thoughts and I hope they help.

Kimberly and others, Thank you so much for your kind replies.
I have evolved on this issue. When I posted this, I was new to the group. I had listened to a NSTA web learning on the “Dynamic Ocean” which was about problems with the Ocean including acidification. Most of the audience was secondary teachers, but it was apparent that they and the presenter did not understand the carbonate chemistry of acidification. I thought that they had enough interest on this topic that it would be a wonderful opportunity to use my niche background to develop a session addressing both topics.
At the same time, I took 5 classes through EDX.org that I thought were phenomenal. The two best were Planetary Boundaries, SDGAcademyX - PB001 and Making Sense of Climate Denial, UQx - Denial101x. The SDGA Academy is a UN outlet for sustainability classes, what William Stapp would have liked. Planetary Boundaries is (I Think) what the best environmental science has to say about out sustainability and footprint from a very integrated perspective. You can get the fundamentals from his TED Talk at https://www.ted.com/talks/johan_rockstrom_let_the_environment_guide_our_... . This is what Rockstrom thinks science tells us about our sustainability and what policy must be obtained by that science. This is edgy for the UN sustainability ed effort, but I find it scientifically plausible. Climate Denial is a class that explores the foundations of climate denial so that us science sorts understand the sociology and psychology of the climate denial movement. It also presents a lot of climate science and how to advocate for science and climate.
After joining NAAEE I took an approved class from NOAA Earth Guardians on Teaching Climate Science. It was taught by a Geoscientist (forgot whom) and I thought it was awful. It violated many environmental educational standards which I will not go into here. I did a poster session on carbonate chemistry and ocean acidification at the NAAEE state affiliate conference a couple of months afterwards to give secondary teachers some ideas and knowledge resources to teach it and had 3 people stop by. We have a small conference and it is dominated by green schools and experiential education, so I do not think that this is necessarily a bad number. I originally posted this here to find out if other people had similar concerns and if this was a worthy NAAEE conference topic.
This year I am finishing up affiliate env. ed certification, advancing projects that I do as a citi. sci. volunteer. I registered and was accepted for the climate reality leader training in Atlanta. I declined that only because I had just started a couple of complicated projects locally and thought to put it off until next year. I am hedging here because I think I am happy with being green and env. ed as far as science goes, but not as far as advocacy can go without science. I have a really good background in physics, env. chemistry, fate and transport, and biogeochemistry (carbon cycle, and all cycles), and this message must be delivered for secondary students and adults for our sustainability and own sake. We have to start before the first to second graders grow up. I cannot think of any moral or ethical rationale to let this opportunity go. I also find the purely activist perspective view does not always accurately portray what we should do and the nature of the problem. I feel the problem is very serious and we best not react inappropriately We have to try to do it right the first time. So, I am thinking really hard about what to do next, since my efforts haven’t been successful and I think the answers I seek may not be in NAAEE. I have started a Facebook group called living earth (secret now) which I will open soon to address this perspective for both science and education and invite feedback here for those that wish to.

I have started a FB group to discuss some of these issues. It is an experiment by me to improve env. education, combat denialism, and discuss how to do it. It is also a reaction to blind activism where we just worry and yell at each other, and is an experiment that I hope is based on science and education. Please post and contribute if interested. Thanks! Geoff FB group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/LivingEarthandEarthSystems/

Hi Geoff, here's another resource for those interested in Climate Change Education to K-12: https://www.edx.org/course/climate-change-education-0.
Best! Ana