House passes environmental literacy bill for schools

The House passed an environmental literacy bill to provide Virginia schools the tools to educate students about climate change by a 53-46 vote on Feb. 13.

The bill, HB 1088, passed along party lines. The bill directs Virginia’s Board of Education to have criterias on climate change and environmental literacy that are based on peer-reviewed scientific sources for local school boards in Virginia.

Del. Betsy Carr (D-Richmond), who introduced the bill, said HB 1088 was inspired by John B. Cary Elementary School’s No Child Left Inside Eco-Campus program, which allows students to plant trees, develop heat maps and study the relationship between nature, humans and environmental health in the classroom.

The Department of Planning and Budget’s Fiscal Impact Statement stated that HB 1088 would be an “estimated one-time cost of $50,000” for the Virginia’s Department of Education.

Several Republican members have shown opposition for the bill. Del. Mike Cherry (R-Chesterfield) said the bill is an additional requirement to a student’s education.

“No matter how well intentioned the bill might be, I will routinely oppose adding more requirements that take away time from key instructional material,” Cherry said.

Del. Ellen Campbell (R-Augusta) said she opposed the bill because of the “learning loss” Virginian children faced in reading comprehension and math during COVID-19.

Glenn Branch, deputy director of National Center for Science Education, said the bill will have a “small difference” for environmental literacy in Virginia given it is not mandatory for schools to implement the board’s material into a school’s curriculum.

“But it does make it easier for educators to teach about climate change,” Branch said.

In 2020, the NCSE and Texas Freedom Network Education Fund gave Virginia an  “F” letter grade for failing to prepare students to participate in “civic deliberation” on climate change. The two advocacy organizations graded U.S states on environmental literacy by statewide standards in the “Making The Grade?” report.

One reviewer from the report found Virginia’s environmental literacy standards “discouraging”  for “a coastal state, facing increased risk of hurricanes and sea level rise.”  The reviewer said Virginia was unmotivated “to teach its children about the current and future threats of climate change — and the solutions to those issues.”

Branch said Virginia was one of six states to receive a failing grade because the study looked only into the state’s science standards, which can be broader and general learning goals for students. A Virginia school’s curriculum can have an in-depth set of content on how children are learning about the environment, Branch said.

Seventy-eight percent of Virginians, participating in the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication survey, strongly or somewhat agreed that Virginian schools should teach “children about the causes, consequences and potential solutions to global warming.” That same survey also showed that 65% of Virginians believe “Congress should do more to address global warming.”

The bill was assigned to the Senate Education and Health subcommittee on public education.