Last month was the warmest April on record and the 11th straight month of record

highs around the world. Today nearly a quarter of people globally live in

drought conditions and forecasters anticipate this year's Atlantic hurricane season

will be the most active on record.

All signs that climate change is an accelerating threat to the planet, and young Americans are worried about it. In fact, 85% of

Generation Z is very or somewhat concerned about climate change according to a

Maris poll from earlier this year. In response, states like

California, Connecticut, and New Jersey are now teaching kids about climate change

in the classroom. One of the educators at the forefront of this is Lauren Madden, professor of elementary

science education at the College of New Jersey.

How do you go about incorporating climate change into a classroom curriculum?

So in New Jersey it's a little bit simpler than it is in some other places because we have standards

that are required to be taught at all grade levels in all subject areas.

So they're really developmentally appropriate and they're good tools for teachers to use to think

about ways that they can connect to climate in things they're already doing in the classroom.

Could you give examples of how lessons about climate change may change from say first

grade to ninth or tenth grade?, that's really important to be developmentally appropriate,

especially when we're talking about working with young children.

So in the early years, it's really about understanding

what lives around you, what's supposed to be here

when things happen seasonally and some of the differences between weather and climate.

It's not a tough concept for a young child to understand that

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