How to Teach K-12 Students About Climate Solutions in Georgia

Chapters

00:00 Welcome and Systems Thinking About Climate Change 

08:30 Introducing the Panel 

09:20 Dr. Donald White on Coweta County’s Educator Adventures 

27:24 Katie Holliday on Project-Based Climate Education at Tybee Island Maritime Academy 48:55 Ramya Shivkumar on Green Cell’s Youth Climate Programs 

01:05:23 Audience Q&A and Closing Resources

How can Georgia K-12 educators nurture and engage the next generation of climate leaders in our state? How are teachers employing hands-on learning experiences around climate with their students, and how do young leaders view their roles in scaling climate solutions?

Drawdown Georgia invited a panel of experts to explore these questions and more in a session titled “K-12 Climate Education: Climate Solutions That Go Beyond Carbon.” Moderated by Jaimie Cloud, president of the Cloud Institute for Sustainability Education, the panel includes four speakers on the ground floor of climate education in Georgia: a science content specialist, a teacher, a student, and a director of a community-based nonprofit.

Why Does Jaimie Cloud Compare Climate Change to a Bathtub?

Jaimie Cloud opens with a framework for systems thinking: climate change is a symptom of global warming, which is a symptom of greenhouse gases being emitted faster than the Earth can absorb them, itself a symptom of outdated design and thinking. Her bathtub metaphor, a faucet representing emissions and a drain representing the Earth’s absorption capacity, became a recurring touchstone throughout the panel.

How Did Coweta County Turn Teacher Training into an Adventure?

Dr. Donald White walks through Coweta County School System’s “Educator Adventures,” immersive multi-day trips that took teachers to the Kendeda Building, Fourth Ward Park, an EV dealership repurposing hybrid batteries, and multiple solar farms. The ripple effects were massive: 32 participating teachers reached nearly 4,000 students, 11,000 parents, and 80,000 utility members through a related media campaign.

How Did One Zoom Call Reshape a Middle School Science Curriculum?

Katie Holliday explains how a conversation with Drawdown Georgia’s John Lanier introduced her Tybee Island Maritime Academy students to the 20 Drawdown Georgia climate solutions, leading them to launch a food waste reduction program with worm composting and a salt marsh monitoring project through Adopt-a-Wetland. Student Etta Wade shares her own experience, from a tidal-energy-powered Future Cities project to a biomimicry-inspired flood shelter design.

What Has Green Cell Learned from Scaling Youth Climate Programs?

Ramya Shivkumar shares a key lesson from Green Cell‘s first international summer camp: identical climate lessons don’t land the same way across different communities and circumstances, and fear of failure, more than apathy, is often what keeps kids from taking action in the first place.

Whether you’re a classroom teacher, a nonprofit leader, or a parent looking for ways to get kids engaged, this conversation offers a practical playbook for turning climate anxiety into climate action.

What You’ll Learn

• How to frame climate change for students using systems thinking and the “bathtub” metaphor.
• How Coweta County built teacher buy-in through immersive, hands-on “Educator Adventures.”
• How one guest Zoom call introduced a Georgia coastal school to the Drawdown Georgia framework.
• How students turned classroom lessons into real food waste reduction and wetland monitoring projects.
• Why identical climate lessons need to be adapted for different communities and circumstances.
• Why fear of failure, not apathy, is often the biggest barrier to youth climate action.
• Practical, vetted resources for K-12 climate educators across Georgia.

Continue reading in our companion blog to learn more about how these Georgia educators, students, and youth leaders are teaching climate solutions that go beyond carbon.

Download the Interview Transcript

Prefer to read the conversation instead? Download the complete PDF transcript of this webinar to explore these panelists’ insights on K-12 climate education in Georgia.