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.
| Date | Time | Title | Description | Location |
| December 9, 2025 | Reading the Climate | 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm | A Standards-Aligned Approach to Integrating Informational Text in Language Arts, Science, and Social Studies (6th-12th) | Rutgers Lifelong Learning Center |
| December 11, 2025 | Using NJ Adapt in Your Classroom: Lesson Development | 4:30 pm - 6:30 pm | Join us for a hands-on professional development session focused on integrating NJ ADAPT—a suite of data visualization and mapping tools developed by Rutgers University—into your classroom instruction. Using NJ Climate Change Education Standards as a framework, participants will collaborate to create climate- and data-based lessons that foster student engagement and real-world learning. This in-person session will kick off the lesson design process, followed by a virtual follow-up meeting in January to share progress and refine ideas. We encourage participants to bring a colleague to co-develop lessons and exchange feedback. Rutgers faculty and staff will be available throughout the session to provide guidance and technical support in using NJ ADAPT effectively. | Rutgers Lifelong Learning Center |
| January 13, 2026 | Incorporating Informational Text Across Content Areas | 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm | A cross-disciplinary approach to deepen understanding of real-world issues, like climate change, through informational text, while meeting literacy standards in science, social studies, and language arts. | Rutgers Lifelong Learning Center |
| January 26, 2026 | Public Health Aspects of Environmental and Social Justice as Related to Climate Change and Extreme Weather Events | 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm | We will cover basic concepts, definitions and known and potential impacts of environmental and social injustices on human/public health in the context of recent extreme weather events and natural disasters connected to climate change. We will include 3-4 interactive activities, using brief 1-2 pages fact sheets/supplemental readings and videos/movie trailers (~3-7 minutes long each) plus Mentimeter polling/word clouds, which teachers could use or modify for use with minors and adults (students and other teachers and staff or even parents) at their districts/schools. Topics will cover a brief history of EJ in the U.S. early 1980s-2020s; issues with quality of air, water, soil/sediment, and the location and clean-up status of Superfund or abandoned hazardous waste sites (State of NJ has most among U.S. states). | Virtual |
| January 27, 2026 | Placed based Learning: NJ Audubon | 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm | How climate change impacts birds and migration in New Jersey and how students can make a difference. | Virtual |
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."