This article examines how a secondary teacher preparation program at a university on the West Coast of the United States was reconceptualized around problem-based approaches to climate disaster and anti-racist education. The researcher tracked two preservice teachers (Kevin, aspiring to teach history, and Lisa, aspiring to teach science) during their first semester in the Graduate Teacher Program (GTP), which had formed a partnership with a local middle/high school emphasizing project-based learning (PBL).
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which occurred mid-semester, both teachers had to pivot from their original curriculum plans about sustainable gardening to new units addressing the pandemic. Kevin designed a unit focused on student wellness in a pandemic, having students research how people coped with past pandemics and create artifacts documenting their own COVID-19 experiences. Lisa developed a unit in which students designed personal protective equipment (PPE) for their wellness and the wellness of society, including an examination of health access in their communities.
The researcher used Sanchez's social focus framework to analyze changes in the teachers' practice and thinking, examining three dimensions: critical consciousness (awareness of one's relationship to larger systems of power), consequential concern (focus on social context and collective wellbeing), and critical liberatory presencing (extending ecological imagination to consider different future possibilities). The author also applied Bransford's adaptive expertise framework and Beach's framework of challenges to preparing teachers to teach about climate crisis.
The findings showed that both teachers made significant growth in their adaptive expertise and ability to design student-centered, community-focused curriculum. They shifted from seeing themselves as the primary constructors of curriculum to positioning students as active co-constructors. However, their engagement with critical perspectives on power relations differed. By the end of the program, Lisa explicitly incorporated analysis of environmental racism and power dynamics into her teaching, while Kevin remained focused on more general equity concerns without directly addressing racial dimensions of climate justice.
The study suggests several program improvements, including providing preservice teachers with more disciplinary knowledge about climate change, creating opportunities for them to first work within their own disciplines before engaging in multidisciplinary planning, and developing more explicit scaffolding for applying anti-racist pedagogies to climate justice teaching. The author concludes that teacher education programs need to develop a common language and identity around climate justice to counter more conventional teacher identities reinforced by conservative school environments.
The Bottom Line
This 2024 study explores the impact of a project-based teacher preparation program focused on cultural and environmental justice on the pedagogical knowledge and practice of pre-service teachers. Through two case studies of beginning teachers in their first semester, the research examines how their practice and thinking changed through participation in an innovative program that integrated anti-racism and climate justice approaches. The findings demonstrate that embedding teacher candidates in authentic school settings with project-based learning opportunities led to significant growth in their adaptive expertise, collaborative skills, and ability to design curriculum that addresses complex social and environmental issues. However, the study also revealed challenges in helping preservice teachers develop critical consciousness around race and power dynamics in their early teaching experiences.