Harley School
Comprehensive Climate Change Curriculum
The Harley School received an E.E. Ford traditional grant to create, develop, and disseminate a comprehensive climate change curriculum for the Upper School. Simultaneously, work to align Harley’s institutional practices with the spirit of the curriculum is being developed through the writing and implementing of a school-wide sustainability plan; including a goal related to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The goal of this curriculum is for every Harley graduate to have an interdisciplinary and systems-thinking approach to the issues surrounding the climate crisis, with a sense of at least one way they could get involved and make an impact. Key priorities in the curriculum work include educating faculty about climate change, empowering teachers to develop lessons that seamlessly integrate with their current courses, providing continued support to keep the curriculum relevant, and sharing the process and resulting curriculum with as many interested schools as possible. Harley looks forward to collaborating with other schools to help them evaluate ways to adapt the curriculum in order to fit their specific strengths and unique attributes.
We also believe students need to see Harley as a role model institution for addressing sustainability issues through our institutional priorities, and also to visibly demonstrate these are much more than just a classroom topic. In other words, it is not simply enough for Harley to “talk the climate change talk”, we must also be willing to walk the walk. The sustainability committee has been working on a school-wide sustainability plan with three major themes: reducing our carbon footprint, improving our ecological footprint, and strengthening our sustainable food practices. Each theme also attempts to evaluate the work through an environmental justice lens. Ultimately, we aim to improve our ability to empower all graduates as empathic and informed leaders who act on innovative solutions to address the impact of climate change and to collaborate with as many other schools as possible to support them in similar efforts.