Teacher: Margaret Wang
Meet the teacherLinks
Margaret Wang
Margaret is the COO and co-founder of SubjectToClimate. She was a high school teacher, primarily in economics and business, for 4 years in Riffa Views International School before she pursued an M.Ed. in international education policy at Harvard Graduate School of Education. Working with Fernando Reimers, she supported several books regarding climate change education and policy. She was inspired to start the solution after talking to several educators who had the desire to do so, but faced barriers such as the lack of engaging and credible resources that truly fit in their classroom as well as low confidence. Outside of work, Margaret is an avid ultramarathon runner and triathlete.
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Overview
SubjectToClimate (StC) is a nonprofit online connector for K-12 educators of all subjects to find credible and engaging materials on climate change at no cost. The team is composed of current and former teachers, scientists and climate activists focused on empowering climate action through education across all grade levels and subjects. Their core platform (www.subjecttoclimate.org) is a free, easy-to-use hub that connects educators to curated resources vetted by scientists and teachers, teacher-developed lesson plans, news articles for students, professional learning opportunities, and an interactive help center so that educators can integrate climate change teachings into what they already teach.
Theory of Change
The organisation aims to make climate change education widely accessible and locally relevant and to increase educator confidence in teaching about climate change as well increasing the time spent teaching the subject. To achieve this, SubjectToClimate provides resources for all subjects and grade levels, so that all teachers are supported with relevant resources to teach about climate change. SubjectToClimate seeks to inspire a diverse, informed, and proactive generation ready to tackle the climate crisis. By educating the next generation about climate change, SubjectToClimate believes that students will feel empowered to take concrete climate action in their lives and communities.
Approach and Actions
Teachers are at the heart of the approach, ensuring that the resources that are produced are relevant and supplemental to teachers’ classrooms. There is a free, easy-to-use platform connecting educators with comprehensive climate change resources, lesson plans, and professional learning opportunities. A range of professional development opportunities are also offered on the platform with many free or low-cost options available. A ‘Student News’ section on the platform offers engaging articles for students to read, these can be searched by topic so students can reach their interest topics quickly. The organisation is now launching state hubs – with the first being in New Jersey and three more launching for back-to-school 2023. The hubs pioneer statewide integrated climate education, customizing the core platform to meet the local needs of the state and aligning resources with state educational standards to maximise relevance and utility.
Impact
The user-friendly nature of the site, coupled with the useful resources that it provides has resulted in excellent satisfaction rates among teachers who use the resources- 89% of surveyed educators were satisfied with the site and 88% of educators found the resources they were looking for. The site has reached over 150,000 unique users, growing at over 100% each month. The outlook for this resource continues to expand its partners as well its offerings in response to educators’ needs.