The Chemistry of Climate Change

High school science teachers are often frustrated by materials that cause their students’ eyes to glaze over, but nowhere has the frustration been greater than with high school chemistry. The course is often taught as a bloodless subject filled with technical models, abstract problem sets, and labs that are most interesting to students when they go awry. Yet chemistry has the potential to provide solutions to the largest science and engineering challenges students will confront as adults: how to make choices as citizens, consumers, producers, and investors that will allow humanity to prosper in the Earth’s fragile habitat. 

San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) has developed a curriculum that integrates Earth Science and focuses the later half of the curriculum on climate change. SERP contributed peripherally to the SFUSD effort but is now developing a distinct curriculum that builds on some of the SFUSD components. With support from the Koshland Foundation, SERP is working in collaboration with Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) and in consultation with SFUSD on a curriculum that will integrate climate change right from the opening pages. Dr. Bruce Alberts, SERP board chairman and President Emeritus of the National Academy of Science, has recruited an outstanding advisory board of chemists to engage with the developers. David Dudley is leading the curriculum development project for SERP, working with a team of curriculum writers and activities developers.