Climate Action
Green is the New Gold: The Role of Climate Education in Future Jobs
April 24, 2025
Each April, we celebrate National Teach Children to Save Day, helping students learn the importance of financial literacy—budgeting, goal-setting, and planning for the future. It’s a reminder that schools have long embraced the idea that real-world skills, like saving money, belong in every child’s education.
But as we prepare students for the workforce, we must also recognize the environmental forces shaping their future lives and careers. Climate education is no longer optional. It is as essential as learning how to create a budget or how to do your taxes—because in the decades ahead, students will not just inherit the climate crisis, they will work within it.
The parallels are clear. Financial education gives students the fiscal tools to plan wisely. Climate education gives them the tools to act responsibly. Both require early exposure, hands-on learning, and integration across all subject areas. Both prepare young people for the workforce and a changing world.
Unfortunately, climate education still lags behind. It’s often left to science teachers alone to teach about climate change, despite the fact that climate change touches every aspect of society. That’s why interdisciplinary climate education—taught in English, Civics, History, Math, and more—is so powerful. When students read climate refugee narratives in English class, analyze clean energy policies in civics, or explore climate data in math, they begin to see the full picture. They connect systems, see real-world impacts, and imagine solutions.
This kind of teaching isn’t just good for learning—it’s good for preparing students for green jobs, civic engagement, and informed decision-making. Oxford Economics projects that the transition to a net zero emissions environment by 2050 will create new industries worth $10.3 trillion to the global economy. This will create a waterfall effect as renewable energies and green technologies, create more markets for more types of green goods, and green services. In other words, we need to prepare our students for the workforce of tomorrow and that starts with robust climate education.
So how do we help teachers—already stretched thin—integrate this kind of learning into their classrooms?
That’s where EARTHDAY.ORG’s “Schools’ Guide to Climate Education” comes in. This free professional development resource gives educators the tools they need to bring climate education into any subject. It includes subject-specific strategies, sample lessons, and ideas for hands-on projects that are meaningful and manageable. Whether you’re a math teacher exploring exponential growth through carbon emissions or a civics teacher unpacking climate justice, the guide helps bridge the gap between the standards you’re already teaching and the future your students are facing.
This National Teach Children to Save Day, let’s expand the conversation. Let’s not just teach kids how to save money—let’s teach them how to save the planet. Climate education, when done well, isn’t one more thing to add. It’s the lens that brings the whole curriculum into focus.
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