Too Hot to Learn: Connecting Climate Literacy, Campus Facilities, and Student Voice through Seeds to Solutions

Date: September 16, 2026
Time: 2:45 PM – 3:45 PM
Ballroom G

Extreme heat increasingly affects communities, schools, and student well-being. This session highlights a Seeds to Solutions™ climate education unit that engages students in investigating how communities prepare for and respond to extreme heat. Participants will explore how students examine local impacts, consider possible solutions, and develop community-focused actions grounded in authentic challenges. Presenters will also share examples of how the unit’s flexible design supports meaningful connections with facilities and operations staff, particularly around issues such as shade, aging infrastructure, and schoolyard and campus heat mitigation. Through examples of culminating engagements and collaboration, attendees will see how climate literacy can bridge campus, community, culture, and curriculum (the “4Cs”) while elevating student voice. Whether you work in curriculum and instruction, facilities, sustainability, or community partnerships, this session will offer ideas for building authentic connections among teaching and learning, campus systems, and community resilience efforts, while elevating student voice and civic participation.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
Attendees will be able to:

• Explore how extreme heat can provide an authentic, locally relevant context for elementary climate literacy learning.
• Examine how the storyline instructional framework supports student sensemaking and agency.
• Analyze examples of student-centered culminating engagements that promote civic participation and community problem-solving.
• Identify strategies for engaging facilities staff, community partners, and other stakeholders as authentic audiences and collaborators in student learning.
• Discuss how the 4Cs framework of campus, community, culture, and curriculum can support interdisciplinary climate resilience efforts in schools.

Speakers:
Julie Hilborn, Director of Environmental Literacy and Sustainability, San Mateo County Office of Education
Holly Steele, Director of Professional Learning & Community Building, Ten Strands