Climate change education legislation falters in Connecticut

The attempt to require the teaching of climate change in Connecticut's public schools by law is apparently over for now. 

Initially, House Bill 5011 would have amended the Connecticut General Statutes to require "that the science curriculum of the prescribed courses of study for public schools include the teaching of climate change and that such teaching begin in elementary school."

Enacting HB 5011 would apparently have made Connecticut the first state to require the teaching of climate change by law. Connecticut adopted the Next Generation Science Standards in 2015, so climate change is presumably already taught in its public schools.

HB 5011 died in the Joint Committee of Education on April 1, 2019, but a similar requirement was previously added to House Bill 7352, which was passed by the committee on March 25, 2019, as NCSE previously reported.

HB 7352 proceeded to the Joint Committee on Appropriations, which failed to act on it by a May 3, 2019, deadline.

Glenn Branch
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Glenn Branch is Deputy Director of NCSE.

branch@ncse.ngo