NCSE was involved in developing a series of guides for educators to use the National Climate Assessment to teach about the causes, effects, and risks of and possible responses to human-caused climate change. The guides focus on the regional chapters of the NCA, helping to unpack the key messages for students and identify high-quality on-line educational resources for the ten regions of the country discussed in the report.
Speaking at a White House award ceremony with youth and environmental educators on August 12, 2014, John Holdren, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, highlighted (at around the 15:00 mark) the guides, describing them as "just one example of the many ways that we can work together to create a skilled and environmentally literate populace for the challenges that we're facing."
As NCSE previously reported, the NCA, produced by a team of more than 300 experts, summarizes the impacts of climate change on the United States, now and in the future. When it was unveiled at the White House on May 6, 2014, NCSE's Mark McCaffrey discussed the educational uses of the report at a panel streamed live and currently available from C-SPAN; his presentation begins at around the 1:38 mark.
The guides were developed by NOAA, the NCAnet Education Affinity Group, and members of the CLEAN Network. NCSE's Minda Berbeco and Mark McCaffrey were instrumental in launching and coordinating the project, and, with interns Rachel Connolly and Alexander Ehrenberg, played a central role in developing the resources for the Northeast, Southeast and Caribbean, Alaska, Hawai'i and Pacific Islands, Coasts, Southwest, and Ocean regions.