Act on Climate
Our climate is changing and influencing our lives every day. The time to take action on climate is now. Learn why you need to get involved, and use our resources below to bring this important topic to your students.
A harp seal sits on a greatly diminished ice pack.
David Doubilet
Climate change is a complex and multifaceted problem that can be both difficult to grasp and challenging to address in the classroom. But since it will be a defining issue for future generations, students need to understand it and also see how individuals, organizations, and nations are taking action to deal with a changing climate.
More than 190 countries signed the Paris Agreement in 2016, committing to change how they create and use energy in order to lower impacts of carbon and other greenhouse gases on the planet. All over the world, people and organizations are taking action to both lower carbon footprints and find innovative ways to adapt to the effects of climate change.
Use this page to find out more about climate change and how to inspire your students to act through service learning.
Inspire Your Students to Take Action
Next Generation Environmental Leaders
Service learning projects can help students become powerful agents for change, while addressing challenges—like climate change—in their communities. Explore these projects for ideas to get your students learning through service.
Living With Climate Change
Explore how people are confronting the challenges of climate change through individual choices, community involvement, and political action.
School-Based Environmental Service Learning
Find practical and engaging ways for students to connect with the natural environment in the classroom.
Field-Based Environmental Service Learning
How can students get immersed in their natural environment through service learning? Find ideas for projects that can make a difference locally and beyond.
Service Learning Toolkit
With this toolkit, teachers can create service learning projects that help students turn their interests into action for positive change.
Clips from Years of Living Dangerously
Explore these clips from season two of the television series Years of Living Dangerously which aired in 2016.
Sea Level Rise and Coastal Cities
Maps depict projected sea level rise in Miami, Florida, in 2030, 2060, and 2100, showing impacts on the dense urban development of South Florida’s largest metro area.
Climate Change and California’s Drought
Take an aerial tour of one of California’s drought-stricken landscapes in this clip from Years of Living Dangerously.
Amazon Deforestation and Climate Change
Join Gisele Bundchen when she meets with one of Brazil’s top climate scientists to discuss the complexity of the Amazon rain forest and its connection to Earth’s atmosphere.
Ocean Impacts of Climate Change
In this clip from Years of Living Dangerously, actor Joshua Jackson scuba dives along the Great Barrier Reef, an ecosystem at risk due to climate change.
A Race Against Time
David Letterman and Anil Raj, CEO of OMC, discuss the company's off-grid solar power arrays in India that provide power to remote locations.
Priceless
Jessica Alba discusses carbon pricing, the idea that people pay more for items that pollute the environment and less for things created in a sustainable manner, with Yoram Bauman.
Safe Passage
Dr. Jeffery Greenblatt, an expert in transportation and climate science, discusses the advantages of autonomous electric cars for the climate with correspondent Ty Burrell.
Uprising
Sigourney Weaver speaks with Barbara Finamore, Asia Director and Senior Attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, and engineer C.T. Wan, managing director of the Hongkong Electric Company, about coal consumption in China and the transition toward renewable energy.