CMSCE has leveraged their expertise in pedagogical practices in STEM to work with leading experts from around Rutgers in climate change to create resources for k-12 educators. Rutgers University, New Jersey Audubon, Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership, and Raritan Headwaters have been awarded one of the NJDOE Climate Change Grants - Expanding Access to Climate Change and NJ Student Learning Through Climate Change Learning Collaborative. The overarching goals and expectations of this grant program are to:
Establish a statewide network to support LEAs in implementing climate change education through the creation of a Central NJ CCLC at Rutgers-NB, with the support of CBOs NJ Audubon, Raritan Headwaters, and Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership to engage in place-based environmental education in each region.
The CCLC at Rutgers University serves the following New Jersey counties: Hunterdon, Middlesex, and Somerset.
Upcoming Climate Change PD
Teachers and administrators from New Jersey public schools are eligible to attend Climate Change Learning Collaborative events and use services provided by the Climate Change Learning Collaborative. PDs are sponsored by the NJDOE Climate Change Grant allowing for the PDs to be free of charge. Please make sure to register for any of the PDs you would like to attend.
To register, click : PD for Teachers
Teachers from New Jersey public schools are eligible to receive a stipend for attending Climate Change Learning Collaborative events outside contracted hours and substitute teacher coverage for attending Climate Change Learning Collaborative events held during contracted hours. Teachers will be required to complete a post-event survey to receive a stipend or substitute teacher coverage. If you have any questions please email climatechangeeducation@docs.rutgers.edu.
Please note there are several PDs that are repeated to give access to as many teachers. Make sure when signing up you have not previously attended the PD. If you have any questions don't hesitate to reach out to us.
Please read over updated policies before signing up.
- Attendees at virtual events must: keep their cameras on and facing them for the entirety of the event, ensure they are logged in under the correct name, not operate a vehicle at any time during the event, and remain fully engaged for the entirety of the event.
- Registrants for in-person events must notify the CCLC of registration cancellation at least 24 hours in advance. Failure to do so will result in the registrant automatically being moved to the waitlist for all future events.
- Stipend payments will be issued 6-12 weeks after the request is submitted, provided all of the request forms have been completed and submitted correctly.
- Registrants can only take one CCLC PD at a time across all 4 CCLCs. The CCLCs are collaborating to ensure registration engagement, and any registrants who are double-booked will not be paid for either event they attend on the same date and overlapping times.
| Date | Time | Title | Description | Location |
| 6/24/26 | 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm | Human Impact, Climate Change, & Water Systems | This K–5 professional development supports teachers in addressing Climate Change Education: New Jersey Student Learning Standards by exploring how human activities affect Earth’s systems and climate. The session focuses on water flow, watersheds, aquifers, and clean drinking water, emphasizing systems of thinking, cause-and-effect relationships, and local climate impacts. Teachers will engage in developmentally appropriate activities that model how students can use observations, simple models, and evidence to understand environmental change. Participants will leave with classroom-ready strategies and resources that integrate science instruction with NJ’s climate literacy expectations. A 5th grade OpenSciEd unit will be used as a Case Study to show how to build your classroom storyline as well as show how it can be adapted for different local watersheds. This case study will serve as a template for teachers to create their own climate-based units. | Virtual |
| 7/9/26 | 10:00 am - 2:00 pm | Investigating Climate Change through Dance: How to leverage climate change standards in your content’s curriculum | Come one, come all! A dance workshop for ALL content areas! This session will focus on the latest New Jersey climate change standards, and how you can use movement as the key to bring them to life in your classroom through arts strategies, arts enhancement, and arts integration. You will walk away with a reinvigorated approach to your teaching and lesson ideas you can implement immediately. | Mason Gross School of the Arts |
| 7/15/26 | 10:00 am - 3:00 pm | Place Based Learning at the Rutgers Snyder Research Farm | Climate Change, Farming, & Solar! Teachers will explore the effects of shifting climate patterns on agriculture and renewable energy, getting an overview of climate change data and research. Then teachers will have the opportunity to tour the Rutgers Snyder Research Farm. During the tour, we will also be stopping at the Solar panels that have been placed on the farm and are part of the Rutgers Agrivoltaics Program. Part of the research team from the Rutgers Agrivoltaics Program will be there to present on the research taking place at several of Rutgers farms with solar panels, including A.J Both (Extension Specialist, Department of Environmental Science), Peter J. Nitzsche (Director, Snyder Research and Extension Farm), and James Schope (Assistant Extension Specialist, Department of Environmental Science). There will be a focus on blue/green jobs in the solar industry and farming, if 1% of the United States farms had solar systems, that would be enough to power the US! | Rutgers Snyder Research Farm |
| 7/16/26 | 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm | Gardening for Wildlife | During this interactive webinar, learn climate change impacts. Learn how to create habitats native to New Jersey through place-based learning. | Virtual |
| 7/22/26 | 9:00 am - 12 pm | Reading the Climate | A Standards-Aligned Approach to Integrating Informational Text in Language Arts, Science, and Social Studies | Rutgers LLC |
| 7/22/26 | 12:30 pm - 2:30 pm | Project Based Learning | This will build off of Year 1 & Year 2 Introduction to Project Based Learning PD and provide you with the chance to continue working on Climate PBLs for your curriculum. Come with lessons, activities, and ideas on how to integrate climate change into the classroom. We are going to be working as teams in the STEM or Humanities areas to share what we have been doing in the classroom, as well as the chance to work on a new climate curriculum. Rutgers faculty will be supporting this work as well. We will also be showcasing our lending library and all the materials you have access to be able to use with your curriculum. | Rutgers LLC |
| 7/22/26 | 9:00 am - 2:00 pm | Adapting to Your Watershed | Teachers learn how to offset climate change impacts of flooding and drought while supporting natural habitats and agriculture through experiential, place-based learning. | Scherman Hoffman |
| 7/28/26 | 9:00 am - 3:00 pm | Summer 2026 Unconference at Rutgers Place Based Climate Education | Teachers learn about place-based climate change education from those who know it best - the teachers who are doing it. This five-hour session will bring you together with other K-12 educators teaching about climate change in a place-based way in their schools. Includes speed-dating sessions to learn more about our respective experience and knowledge, brief sessions on the basics of justice-oriented climate change education and the EcoSchool place-based education platform. | Rutgers LLC |
| 8/4/26 | 9:00 am - 12:00 pm | Reading the Climate | A Standards-Aligned Approach to Integrating Informational Text in Language Arts, Science, and Social Studies | Rutgers LLC |
| 8/4/26 | 12:30 pm - 3:30 pm | Climate Change & Wildfires | Climate change affects the frequency, intensity, and health impacts of wildfires. We will discuss global trends in wildfires, how climate change affects them, and how we can help improve our wildfire resilience in New Jersey. | Rutgers LLC |
| 8/5/26 | 10:00 am - 12:00 pm | Bridging the Past and Present | This workshop empowers middle school educators to integrate climate change education into social studies by connecting historical lessons from ancient civilizations to contemporary environmental challenges. Through examples and workshop discussions, participants will collaborate with facilitators and each other to identify strategies, resources, and interdisciplinary approaches that foster critical thinking about sustainability, resilience, and the human-environment connection. Attendees will be equipped to inspire students to draw meaningful parallels between historical events and our shared responsibility for a sustainable future. | Rutgers LLC |
| 8/6/26 | 10:00 am - 12:00 pm | Impacts on People and Wildlife | This interactive webinar will explore the impacts of climate change on people and the wildlife around us. An experienced RiSC / EcoSchools teacher will share how her students have investigated wildlife impacts. | Virtual |
| 8/11/26 | 9:00 am - 3:30 pm | From Land to Water: Water health in time of climate change | What we do on land does not stay on land. The choices we make on our property can impact the waters nearby, as rain and runoff pick-up and move pollutants from their point of origin to our waterways. In a time of climate change when precipitation is highly variable these pollutants are more likely to affect our local and regional water quality. Join us for a tour of New Brunswick infrastructure and landscape and a boat trip on the Raritan River to learn more about how we monitor water quality in general and pathogen monitoring more specifically, and about solutions to divert the pollutants from our waterways. This full-day workshop will be followed up with a webinar (August 13, 4PM EDT) to explore instructional resources related to the Lower Raritan watershed, and water quality monitoring. | Rutgers Boathouse & Morgan Marina |
| 8/12/26 | 9:00 am - 3:30 pm | From Land to Water: Water health in time of climate change | What we do on land does not stay on land. The choices we make on our property can impact the waters nearby, as rain and runoff pick-up and move pollutants from their point of origin to our waterways. In a time of climate change when precipitation is highly variable these pollutants are more likely to affect our local and regional water quality. Join us for a tour of New Brunswick infrastructure and landscape and a boat trip on the Raritan River to learn more about how we monitor water quality in general and pathogen monitoring more specifically, and about solutions to divert the pollutants from our waterways. This full-day workshop will be followed up with a webinar (August 13, 4PM EDT) to explore instructional resources related to the Lower Raritan watershed, and water quality monitoring. | Rutgers Boathouse & Morgan Marina |
| 8/25/26 | 9:00 am - 1:00 pm | Currents of Change: Ecology by Kayak | Join us for a workshop that brings science and history to life—by kayak! Paddling along the South Branch of the Raritan River, educators will explore the interconnected stories of creatures large and small, from American eels to benthic macroinvertebrates and algae, as well as the lasting impact of dams on aquatic ecosystems. Through hands-on water sampling, species identification, and historical site exploration, teachers will gain practical tools to integrate environmental science, local history, and sustainability into their curriculum. This workshop emphasizes place-based learning and real-world connections to their local watershed. | South Branch Raritan River, 7 Lower Center St, Clinton, NJ 08809 |
The Rutgers University Climate Change Learning Collaborative is funded by a grant from the New Jersey Department of Education. This material and any opinions, results, conclusions, or recommendations expressed within are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the New Jersey Department of Education nor constitute an endorsement thereof.
Climate Change Learning Collaboratives
Looking for more support, information, and resources to Climate Change Education check out the following sites.
LEAs District Partners
Dunellen Public Schools Somerville Public School District Sayreville School District
Climate Change PD Reviews & Feedback
Rutgers Today - Rutgers Partners with New Jersey Schools to Develop Historic Climate Change Curriculum
NJ Spotlight News - Climate Change: Rutgers helps teachers to include it in curriculum
NorthJersey.com -Climate Change is now part of NJ school curricula. Rutgers shares its resources.
The Daily Targum - NJ First Lady Tammy Murphy visits U., speaks to public school teachers about climate education
Feedback from our April 27, 2023 Climate Change Workshop:
A NJ High School teacher said "Thank you so much for hosting an amazing event. I have been teaching a bit, and sometimes I can be jaded about workshops and conferences, my standard for success is if I have a meaningful takeaway, and yesterday I had a ton of takeaways, I am very grateful for the live document (that is brilliant) and even with that, I have 4 pages of ideas I wrote down during the workshop. The content was very meaningful and will be changing the content I am working on for the rest of the year, and how I will be doing things next year. Seeing different disciplines each talk about the same graph left me gobsmacked. That was a wow, and I hope that it was filmed, and can be put as a vignette on youtube or somewhere other platform."