NEW JERSEY – Standing at the front of her classroom at Slackwood Elementary School north of Trenton, New Jersey, one afternoon in June, Ms Michelle Liwacz asked her first-graders to consider a problem: Antarctica is getting warmer. What could the penguins that live there do to adapt?

The children, most of them aged seven, murmured excitedly.

One boy said the birds could cool off in the water, but reconsidered after remembering all the hungry orcas awaiting them there.

“Maybe they could migrate to another cold place, like the United States in winter?” the boy, whose name is Noah, asked.

A girl named Aliya suggested that humans give them floaties.

Gabi thought maybe the penguins could build igloos. A few of them, she added, could live inside her fridge.

As the school year draws to a close, New Jersey has the distinction of being the first, and so far only, US state to require that climate change be taught to everyone from kindergarten through 12th grade.

The topic is woven into lesson plans across most subject areas, even physical education classes.

The standards are built on a striking premise: Even as storms eat away New Jersey’s coastline, snow days become obsolete and wildfire smoke poisons the air outside, climate change can be taught to the youngest learners without freaking them out.

Ms Tammy Murphy, wife of Governor Phil Murphy, a Democrat, was the driving force behind the new standards.

She said climate change education is vital to help students attune to the planet’s health, prepare for a new economy based on green energy and adapt to climate shifts that promise to intensify as this generation of children reaches adulthood.

But the state’s method of teaching its youngest learners about climate change arguably does something more profound. Instead of focusing on the doom and gloom, the standards are designed to help children connect with what is going on in the natural world around them, and, crucially, learn how to solve problems.

“It’s perceived as such a heavy topic, as something we have to wait to talk about until they’re older,” said Ms Lauren Madden, a professor of elementary science education at the College of New Jersey who researches and offers guidance on the implementation of the standards.

“When we shield them from so much, they’re not ready to unpack it when they learn about it, and it becomes more scary than when they understand they’re in a position where they can actively think about solutions,” she added.

“When you take kids seriously that way, and trust them with that information, you can allow them to feel empowered to make locally relevant solutions.”

Ms Murphy, who also serves on the board of former vice-president Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project, began meeting in 2019 with more than 100 educators to discuss creating new standards.

In June 2020, the state board of education voted to require climate change be taught in seven out of nine subject areas, including social studies and world languages.

The board is expected to vote this summer on whether to require that climate change be expanded to the two remaining subject areas, English language arts and mathematics.

In advance of that decision, some voices of dissent have surfaced.

At a public hearing in May, critics pushed for debunked denialism theories about climate to also be taught and said teaching climate science is a form of “indoctrination”.

One speaker said the use of the term “global” in the standards would make children uncomfortable about calling themselves American.

But a poll conducted in May by Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, New Jersey, found that 70 per cent of state residents supported climate change being taught at schools.

Mr Dan Cassino, a professor who directed the survey, said it could be one of the Murphy administration’s most popular policies.

That support mirrors nationwide findings that show the overwhelming majority of Americans, on both sides of the political divide, want their children to learn about climate change.

At Slackwood Elementary, a public school serving about 250 children from kindergarten through third grade, several parents said they were delighted by the climate lessons.

It relieved them of some of the burdens of trying to explain climate change and extreme weather, they said, and tapped children’s instinctive curiosity about animals and nature.

“If they’re being more respectful to the environment, they’ll be good human beings,” said parent Niral Sheth, whose youngest daughter is in Ms Liwacz’s first grade classroom.

“They need to know what they can do. I don’t want them to be left behind.”

Many of the kids at Slackwood are English language learners – one teacher counted 17 languages spoken.

More than half of them qualify for free or reduced-cost lunch. The school has a pop-up pantry that sends bags of food home to families in need.

Outside, in a corner of the playground, are a fenced-in butterfly garden, a compost bin and a soil bed where kids have tested which type of fertiliser, a chemical commercial variety or a natural blend, best helped plants (the natural one came out ahead).

Recently, as dangerous smoke shrouded the skies, Ms Liwacz and her first-graders talked about how even though the Canadian wildfires were scary, they were able to stay safe indoors, and that the smoke would eventually abate.

“It makes them feel a part of what’s happening outside of school in the real world,” Ms Liwacz said.

“Of course, not all problems are going to be solved. But it’s getting them thinking, How can I fix this? How can I change this? What can I do with myself or with my friends or my community to help change what I see or what I noticed?”

In some states, there has been strong resistance to incorporating climate science into classroom learning.

Although none bans global warming education, according to Mr Glenn Branch, deputy director of the National Centre for Science Education, some states frame climate science as a matter of debate.

This spring, the Texas state board of education issued guidelines saying students ought to learn the “positive” side of fossil fuels.

At a recent conference in New Jersey about integrating the climate standards into primary schools, several educators said they were daunted about adding climate science to their lesson plans, especially given educational setbacks their students suffered during the pandemic.

They also said they needed more guidance. The state has set aside US$5 million (S$6.7 million) for climate change education grants, drawing applications from nearly half of New Jersey’s school districts.

Still, in a recent small survey of educators, Prof Madden, the early education specialist, found that more than three-quarters worried that climate change might not be a priority in their district because of lack of subject expertise.

Concerns about controversy have increased too – with the percentage of educators who said teachers might avoid it because it was politically sensitive nearly doubling to 17 per cent between June 2022 and December 2022.

Yet educators at the conference roundly agreed that climate change should be taught to give students a sense of agency that could allay the climate anxiety that is especially pronounced for young people worldwide.

Asked whether learning about climate change could be scary for children, Ms Monica Nardone, a third-grade teacher in Trenton, all but rolled her eyes.

“We have lockdown drills” to prepare for school shootings, she said. “Seriously? How much more are we going to make them afraid?” NYTIMES