Tackling the climate crisis requires creating climate champions of all ages—people who are educated on climate science, passionate about addressing the climate crisis, and engaged in concrete efforts to “bend the curve” of global warming. Thus, Climate Champions aims to get more teaching, learning, and action on the climate crisis in regional schools. 

Launched in late spring 2020, this pilot project, based at UC San Diego, aspires to be a model for connecting K12, university, and community, ultimately in service of climate action and climate justice. The UC-CSU ECCLPS initiative (Environment and Climate Change Literacy Project and Summit) has inspired and informed the direction of Climate Champions. Reciprocally, this project seeks to inform the statewide scaleup of climate education, showing how the ECCLPS recommendations can be put into action, leveraging state university systems to support curriculum development, pre-service and in-service teachers.