1. 2017 Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative Fellow
Building Tomorrows Workforce by Addressing Today’s Climate and Energy Challenges
Tamara Shapiro Ledley
2017 Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative Fellow

2. The Need: Build Political Will to Address Climate Change through Education and Youth Engagement
Develop Student’s Critical Thinking and Data Analysis Skills
“…new business skills are needed, including analytical capacity or basic science literacy.” (National Research Council, 2014)
Develop Student’s Understanding and Engagement with Civic Processes
Over half of registered voters think global warming should be a high priority for the President and Congress; however, only 1 in 5 think people can influence government and 1 in 3 are involved in a campaign to influence government (Leiserowitz et al., May 2017).
Develop student’s ability to work in collaboration and in partnership with stakeholders across sectors
“students need “soft skills” to work across sectors and with a diverse set of stakeholders and civil society” (National Research Council, 2014)
“Effective climate change education faces many challenges. In order for future members of the workforce and citizenry to be prepared to contribute to addressing the impacts and solving the problems resulting from climate change, they must have sufficient contact time with the science behind the causes” (National Research Council, 2014).
Citation: National Research Council. (2014). Climate Change Education:
Preparing Future and Current Business Leaders: A Workshop Summary. M. Storksdieck,
Rapporteur. Steering Committee on Climate Change Education to Prepare Future
and Current Business Leaders. Board on Science Education, Division of Behavioral
and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies
Press.
Leiserowitz, A., Maibach, E., Roser-Renouf, C., Rosenthal, S., & Cutler, M. (2017). Politics &
Global Warming, May Yale University and George Mason University. New Haven, CT: Yale
Program on Climate Change Communication.
In addition, they need to develop the skills to identify, gather, collect, and accurately discern the credibility of the information with reasoning skills; engage in discourse approaches that enable trust; analyze and draw conclusions from the information and data that they have gathered; develop solutions to problems based on those conclusions; and communicate their findings effectively to others.” (Ledley et al, 2017)

3. Bringing Together Needs and Capabilities
Existing Reviewed Educational Materials
Experience Providing Teacher Professional Development
NSTA tested Learning Center Online Platform
>200,000 teachers engaged
Public and customized landing pages
Documents hours of professional development
Educational Assets & Capabilities
Teachers & Students Needs
Climate Change Impacts in Communities

4. Bringing Together Needs and Capabilities
Critical Thinking & Data Analysis Skills
Climate and energy science content knowledge
Developing and Implementing Investigations
Expert Support
Meaningful engagement in community issues
Existing Reviewed Educational Materials
Experience Providing Teacher Professional Development
NSTA tested Learning Center Online Platform
>200,000 teachers engaged
Public and customized landing pages
Documents hours of professional development
Educational Assets & Capabilities
Teachers & Students Needs
Climate Change Impacts in Communities
Need to address the local impacts of climate change
Need to promote development of future workforce
Stakeholders
Governments
Businesses
Organizations

5. What if… High school students simultaneously could
Contribute to solving the societal and economic impacts of climate change and energy challenges
Renewable energy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
Infrastructure that can withstand sea level rise and extreme precipitation events
Health infrastructure that can help citizens who are vulnerable to extreme temperature and precipitation events which cause the spread of disease.
Develop their skills as the workforce for tomorrow.
Critical Thinking Skills & Science Literacy
Civic Engagement
Business Development

6. Two Part Strategy Teachers as Key Leverage Points
Two aligned components…
Teacher Professional Learning Community
Teachers support teachers with input from cross-sector experts and collaboration
Ongoing development of Teachers knowledge of and abilities in
Climate and Energy Science
Social Impacts of climate change
Partnership Development
Student Competition the includes cross sector partnerships to solve local challenges related to climate change or energy
Define the activities to be undertaken
Identify and develop partnerships to implement
Develop a business plan to fund and sustain the effort OR Develop and make civic recommendations if appropriate

7. Local Teacher Blended Professional Learning Community
Supporting Expertise
Local Teacher Blended Professional Learning Community
City / Regional / Local BTW Community
Building Tomorrow’s Workforce (BTW) Leadership Team
Student – Professional Partnership Project Competition & Action Team
Student – Professional Partnership Project Competition & Action Team
Student – Professional Partnership Project Competition & Action Team
= Teachers = Students = Scientists, Engineers, Government Leaders,
= Teacher Leaders Businesses & Organizations

8. Building Tomorrow’s Workforce (BTW) Leadership Team
City / Regional / Local
BTW Community
City / Regional / Local
BTW Community
Community of Communities – Overarching Coordination
City / Regional / Local
BTW Community
City / Regional / Local
BTW Community
Vision for the Future
City / Regional / Local
BTW Community

9. Building Tomorrow’s Workforce (BTW) Team….
BTW Project Leadership
Director, Manager, Admin Staff, Development, Evaluation/Impact Measurement
Board of Advisors
Operational Partnerships – National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) Learning Center, Science Education Resource Center – Carleton College, Teacher Leaders
BTW Program Components
BTW Teacher Professional Learning Community
Teacher Leaders and Teacher Community
Supporting Expertise: Scientists, Engineers, Government & Civic Officials, Business and Organizational Partners, Other Stakeholders – Challenge to Engage
BTW Student–Professional Partnership Competition and Action Teams
Students
Teachers
Organizational Partners – Challenge to Engage

10. Benefits… Teachers Teachers and students provide…
Ability to guide all students in understanding climate science and solutions
Identify and guide students in participating in impact and solutions planning – the competition
Teachers and students provide…
Ideas, Energy, Enthusiasm,
Plans to address pressing local societal problems.
Businesses, organizations, and government agencies…
Immediately get a larger team to address local societal problems that impact their missions and goals… AND
A better trained and more engaged future workforce to fill their future jobs.

11. What is needed to succeed… Resource Requirements
Funding Needs – Major Challenge
Teacher Blended Professional Learning Community
Teacher Leaders
National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) – Learning Center Platform
Face-to-face workshops
Student-Professional Partnership Teams
Teacher facilitators/coaches (Teacher Leaders)
Project development costs
Curriculum Materials development and maintenance
Evaluation / Impact Measures
Director, Partnership, Development & Administrative teams
Slide 6 – Price Tag. I would rename this slide “Resource Requirements” In terms of estmayng this, one thing you might
consider is building a basic budget for a pilot (year 1) and then full implementaton (say, year 5). Say how many schools,
learning community members and students would be involved for each, and then build a separate spreadsheet with costs
that might include cost of community support, facilites, materials, admin, etc. Since you have done this before I think if you
start with the categories and pilot it will be easy to build this (taking some guesses where needed), and then I would
recommend highly summarizing the data for the slide, maybe with the Pilot on the left and the Full Implementation on the
right. Include the numbers of participants, and be sensitve to the natural viewer calculaton of per student or per school
costs.

12. What is needed to succeed… Resource Requirements
Multiple Revenue Streams
Pay for service, who pays
Pay for product, who pays
Philanthropic – operational
Student Team Sponsorship
Teacher Sponsorship
Project Sponsorship
Challenge
What avenues are viable?
Need help developing a strategy and plan for identifying an pursuing possible funding sources
Add examples:
Curriculum Associates – for profit that charges for materials and PD

13. Immediate Next Steps Looking for an effective framework that can generate revenues
NSTA – meeting scheduled
Earth Day Network – meeting scheduled
Meetings with various teacher and science supervisor groups
Get a reality check on the usefulness of the described blended professional development
What is needed?
Ongoing supported professional development
Full curriculum
Help in developing curriculum using CLEAN and other trusted resources
How is professional development funded
Outreach to school districts
How are professional development funds allocated?
How are they spent and who decides?

14. Questions, Comments, Suggestions?
Tamara Shapiro Ledley