The Project-Based Learning for Global Climate Justice Program is a collaboration with Penn’s Graduate School of Education and 70 educators around Asia, Africa, and Europe working together on a K-12 education program that emphasizes climate change and social inequalities.
It was 3 a.m. in Philadelphia when Zachary Herrmann, principal investigator of the Project-Based Learning (PBL) for Global Climate Justice Program, kicked off a meeting with 70 educators located in six sites around Asia, Africa, and Europe. Across time zones and continents, they were all gathered with a shared purpose: to increase the likelihood that every K-12 student gets an education that equips them to address real-world challenges, such as climate change and its resulting social inequities.
“We knew we were attempting something very different from anything we had attempted before. We honestly weren’t sure what to expect,” says Herrmann, adjunct associate professor at Penn’s Graduate School of Education (GSE). His PBL for Global Climate Justice work has been supported for three years as one of the Environmental Innovations Initiative’s research communities.
Together with various Penn colleagues, including GSE’s Taylor Hausburg, Gillian Daar, and Emma Koropp, Herrmann has been exploring the potential of PBL and climate change for three years, developing resources that educators across the globe have leveraged in their own classrooms to create hands-on learning experiences for young students.
Educators traditionally teach about climate change and its uneven social impacts in ways that can inadvertently disengage students by treating them like passive recipients of information, rather than active agents of change, Herrmann says. Across grades at schools, this content is usually part of a science lecture. But when Penn prioritized climate, underscoring it in its strategic vision In Principle and Practice, Herrmann and the team saw an opportunity to apply PBL and transform K-12 climate education.
“PBL inspires teachers because it positions their students as active agents who are responding to the climate crises, rather than just learning about it,” Herrmann says. Daar adds, “We are facing so many climate related challenges–it can feel overwhelming. As the educators described their projects, I felt hopeful. Here were over 70 educators from around the world, committed to engaging their students in the world’s most pressing questions and developing projects that had students not just learning about them, but taking action, empowering them to be change-makers in the world.”
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A West Philadelphia High School student practices the drum as part of a July summer program in partnership with the Netter Center for Community Partnerships and nonprofit Musicopia.
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