climate change can be controversial and not everyone believes in it but here in New Jersey teaching it is mandatory and now Princeton University is on a quest to educate dozens of K through 12 teachers across the state and expand the way they teach it the educational program is part of the state's mandated climing curriculum which is focused on equipping Educators with ways to explore the topic on every grade level in all types of classrooms but as Ted Goldberg reports even science teachers are learning something new Princeton is turning the tables on teachers and briefly making them students on campus they love feeling like a student again and so that really brings the perspective of what it's like to be a student in their own classroom so that's one of the big outcomes that teachers leave with as well as really feeling comfortable and confident the quest program is teaching 31 public and private school teachers this summer helping them explain specific scientific Concepts to students it's all part of the state's mandate to introduce climate change in the classroom there were plenty of things especially when it came to the aerosols the climate Solutions like carbon sequestration through different Technologies I had no clue what was going on there so hearing about that learning about it taking notes and saying this is something that I can provide for my students now was really really awesome Anthony gacet teaches environmental science at Orange High School he was one of the teachers going through this experiment which calculated how much photosynthesis occurred in bags of leaves kacet knew that more leaves equals more photosynthesis but he was happy to learn more whenever something pops up and it's like oh I had no clue what was going on there I actually kind of get a little bit excited that's the scientific process for me and I want my students to feel comfortable with coming out with an idea and saying I'm not really sure what's going on here a lot of people think oh it's a science thing like I don't need to concern myself with it but it actually has impacts on everything that affects everybody and um it disproportionately affects you know certain groups of people like her students some other homes now are subject to flooding uh some of our schools we have trouble getting to when there's you know big precipitation events Barbara Cera teaches at pek High School in New Brunswick she says students can get overwhelmed by learning about the effects of climate change and Quest helps give her the tools to calm them down it's gloom and doom it's beyond me like I can't do anything about it so just giving the kids awareness education voice and agency and empowering them like no we can all do little things and fight for this together make a difference um is really important I teach you know 12 15 teachers but then every you know every year they teach thousands of kids and so that you know you can have that impact that I think that's amazing that we can have that especially when teachers keep returning for different scientific topics Quest provides like such a wonderful experience content wise but also teaching strategy wise and I keep coming back as a participant I've been doing this for probably 20 years now and I'll keep coming back because I love learning myself four years ago New Jersey became the first state to mandate climate change education across all subjects projects like Quest helped to make that a little easier for teachers in the Garden State in Princeton I'm Ted Goldberg NJ Spotlight news [Music]