The State of California provided the San Mateo County Office of Education with $6 million to create curricular resources to help teachers promote students’ understanding of climate change and environmental justice, leading to action in their communities.

The San Mateo County Office of Education contracted Ten Strands to develop units for every grade level by engaging community writing teams and subject matter experts in student-centered pedagogy, climate change, environmental justice, trauma-informed practices, Indigenous ways of knowing, and more. These units will be free open education resources, standards-based, and will integrate California’s Environmental Principles and Concepts.

Current Program Status

Writing teams met at the County Office of Education for three days in August 2023 to move their work forward together. See the article below by Milton Reynolds that highlights that experience. A team of experts will review the curriculum through the end of October. The teams will then make revisions during the months of November and December. Starting in January, preparations for field tests will commence. The curricular units will be field tested and evaluated beginning in March 2024. 

Embracing the Power of the Collective, Milton Reynolds (October 5, 2023)

Curriculum Writing Teams

Writing teams, which include seven community- and student-centered organizations, are actively working on developing curriculum for use in K-12 classrooms across California. The writing teams include:

A few larger organizations with broader experience in writing open education resources on climate change and environmental justice curriculum are providing support and capacity-building to the curriculum writing teams to ensure coherence and consistency within and across grade levels. These organizations include:

  • BSCS Science Learning: Provides broad curriculum development support and design for the curriculum framework, including unit and lesson design.
  • California Subject Matter Project: Provides expertise related to the California state standards, Environmental Principles and Concepts, content, cross-curricular design, and professional learning.
  • Concord Consortium: Provides access and support related to online modeling and data tools such as SageModeler and CODAP.
  • The Climate Collective: Provides expertise related to climate change curriculum frameworks and development.

Previous Updates

Patricia Love

Executive Director, Strategy and Communications

Email: plove@smcoe.org

Phone: (650) 802-5559