The mission to raise awareness and find solutions to the climate crisis extends to our nation's schools.

That's where educators are hoping to empower students with knowledge and inspire them to come up with

ways to ensure a better climate future. Lee Gaines from member station WFY in Indianapolis

visited a classroom in Bloomington, Indiana, this past spring,

where high school students were pitching their ideas to scientists.

It's mid-May and high school freshman Dwayne Murphy is pitching a big idea to climate scientist Ben Kravitz.

There's going to be a tank, and it's just going to be like a big, giant metal tank.

You fill it up with water and the tank's just going to heat up, I guess.

That hypothetical tank will feed a steam and solar-powered car.

But Dwayne says it could have some drawbacks.

It's not really designed to taking damage

at all, so you have to be like really gentle with it usually. This conversation is part of a larger

lesson about developing technologies that reduce planet heating pollution. Kirsten Milks is Dwayne's

teacher at Bloomington High School South. She's been refining this lesson over the last three years with help from Ben Kravitz and other scientists at Indiana University.

The fact is that climate change is the story of these young people's lives.

It is already the story of where we live.

It is the story of a state largely supported by agriculture.

Climate change is here and now. And students need to know not just the stuff about it that is challenging and difficult,

but also they need to see how change can happen. They need to feel like they understand and can actually make a difference in our shared

future. Indiana recently approved new standards that now require high school students in Earth

and space science to learn about human-caused climate change. Many educators report they feel

unprepared to teach climate change. A national survey in 2022 found that 56% of teachers only have the necessary resources, some of the time or never.

...