Special March 2023

Volume 15 Issue 10

In 2020, New Jersey announced it will be the first U.S. state to require climate change education, throughout grades K-12, as a response to increasing recognition of frequent local, state, national and worldwide impacts. Through Rutgers School of Public Health (SPH), the NJ Safe Schools Program (NJSS) developed, over the 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 school years with a comprehensive testing process with dozens of students across three school districts in NJ, an introductory ≤2-hour asynchronous, online course for NJ high school (HS) students. It provides supplemental information to augment and complement district/school curricula on environmental science, climate change, sustainability, environmental justice, and related occupational health and safety topics. The course, currently hosted on the Rutgers Canvas Learning Management System or LMS, is titled, “Introduction to HS Students to Climate Change, Sustainability, and Environmental and Social Justice.” This course continues to be available to students and teachers for the 2022-23 school year, and in future years. For more information, please look at the following website pages via NJSS or via a NJ non-profit working with NJ agencies and Office of the Governor, respectively.

https://sph.rutgers.edu/training/nj-safe-schools/climate-change.html

https://njclimateeducation.org/professional-learning (listed under “Professional Learning”)

To enroll students and yourself and/or colleagues working in NJ public schools:

Please email cscbre@sph.rutgers.edu with an Excel spread sheet or Word table containing each student’s first name, last name and school administered email address (or student’s personal email address formally accepted for tracking purposes at the district/school). 

References:

Shendell, D., Black, L., Way, Y., Aggarwal, J., Campbell, M., & Nguyen, K. Knowledge, Attitudes and Awareness of Public High School Students Regarding Concepts and Environmental Health Aspects of Climate Change, Sustainability and Environmental Justice. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2023, 20(3), 1922. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20031922

(Accepted/in press January 16-17, 2023 for March 2023 issue)

Black, L.F., Li, K., Shendell, D.G. 2022. Expanding Awareness of Climate Change, Sustainability, and Environmental Health through an Introductory Short Online Course for High School Students. Elsevier EXPLORE: Health and the Environment. 18 (3): 381-383. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1550830722000386?via%3Dihub

(Accepted/in press as of late February-March 2022 for May-June 2022 issue)

The New Jersey Safe Schools Program (NJSS) conducted a vaccine hesitancy survey between March and July 2022 to understand the vaccine practices and identify which agencies work-based learning (WBL) professionals trust most regarding COVID-19 and vaccination information.

Of all supervisors who took the NJSS WBL trainings between 2014 and 2022, 269 teachers took the survey. Among these teachers, most identified the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (65.4%), primary care providers (37.5%), and state health departments (28.6%) as their top trusted sources for information related to COVID-19 vaccines. The study provides valuable insight regarding COVID-19 vaccination efforts and vaccine hesitancy trends across the state of New Jersey.

This paper was published in the MDPI Vaccines journal. If you are interested in reading more about the study’s findings please visit https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines11020466

Nguyen KT, Aggarwal J, Campbell ML, Shiau S, Shendell DG. COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy among New Jersey Teachers and Impacts of Vaccination Information Dissemination. Vaccines. 2023; 11(2):466. https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines11020466

For 2022-2023, we encourage teachers and students to take advantage of these asynchronous, free, ~1.5-3- hour opportunities to augment in-person class and other online activities with your students. They can help meet curricular planning and implementation goals approved by district and school(s). Upon completing online courses, students and teachers receive a certification of completion for each course. Also, teachers will receive professional development units (PDU). If you are interested in enrolling your students and yourself in any of the courses, please email cscbre@sph.rutgers.edu with an Excel spread sheet or Word table containing each student’s first name, last name and school administered (or formally accepted for tracking purposes) email address.