Environmentalist Bill McKibben to give EARTH DAY keynote at CUNY Conference on Climate Change Education

On Earth Day, Thursday, April 22, 2021 LaGuardia Community College/ CUNY will host the first-ever CUNY Conference on Climate Change Education. Bill McKibben, environmental activist, author, and founder of 350.org, will give a keynote address titled, “Climate Education: A Way to Make an Education Whole.” Considered the father of modern climate change education, McKibben was one of the first to sound the alarm about climate change and he is credited with spearheading the fossil fuel divestment movement and resistance to the Keystone oil pipeline.

A second keynote will be given by Clayton Carnes, an environmentalist and educator from Brisbane, Australia. From 2010-2017 he was part of Microsoft’s 12-member International Advisory Panel for its Global Partners in Learning program.

The CUNY Conference on Climate Change Education (C4E) at LaGuardia Community College is the first conference focused solely on the teaching of climate change and is a necessary first step if mandatory CCE is introduced in NY.

In January 2020, a bill (S7341) was introduced in the New York State Senate, sponsored by Senator Andrew Gounardes (D-22nd District) to amend the education law. If enacted, this bill will require climate change curriculum in all elementary and secondary schools and make New York one of the few states in the nation mandating Climate Change Education (CCE).

Conference participants will learn about what other educators are teaching, how they are teaching it, discuss best practices, and will develop the network necessary to effectively provide CCE in New York.

In order to open the discussion as widely as possible, this FREE conference welcomes K-12 and post-secondary institution educators, informal educators, and representatives of non-governmental organizations and government agencies.

A CUNY Interdisciplinary Climate Crisis Research Grant is making this conference possible. LaGuardia Environmental Sciences Professor and Environmental Sciences Program Director Holly Porter-Morgan, PhD, is lead PI. She is joined by co-PIs from throughout CUNY and from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University.

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