Bill Text: IL SB3644 | 2023-2024 | 103rd General Assembly | Introduced

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Bill Title: Amends the Courses of Study Article of the School Code. Provides that, beginning with the 2025-2026 school year, every public high school shall include instruction on climate change and the impacts and causes of climate change in grades 9 through 12 in specified courses. Provides that the State Board of Education shall convene a working group of students, educators, and experts in the area of climate change. Sets forth tasks for the working group concerning State learning standards. Provides that the State Superintendent of Education shall prepare and make available to school boards instructional materials and professional development training for educators that may be used as guidelines for development of the instruction. Effective immediately.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)

Status: (Introduced) 2024-03-15 - Rule 3-9(a) / Re-referred to Assignments [SB3644 Detail]

Download: Illinois-2023-SB3644-Introduced.html

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103RD GENERAL ASSEMBLY State of Illinois 2023 and 2024 SB3644 Introduced 2/9/2024, by Sen. Laura Ellman SYNOPSIS AS INTRODUCED:
105 ILCS 5/27-23.17 new
Amends the Courses of Study Article of the School Code. Provides that, beginning with the 2025-2026 school year, every public high school shall include instruction on climate change and the impacts and causes of climate change in grades 9 through 12 in specified courses. Provides that the State Board of Education shall convene a working group of students, educators, and experts in the area of climate change. Sets forth tasks for the working group concerning State learning standards. Provides that the State Superintendent of Education shall prepare and make available to school boards instructional materials and professional development training for educators that may be used as guidelines for development of the instruction. Effective immediately.
LRB103 38155 RJT 68288 b
A BILL FOR
SB3644 LRB103 38155 RJT 68288 b
AN ACT concerning education.
Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois,
represented in the General Assembly:
Section 5. The School Code is amended by adding Sections
27-23.17 as follows:
(105 ILCS 5/27-23.17 new)
Sec. 27-23.17. Environmental education.
(a) Beginning with the 2025-2026 school year, every public
high school shall include instruction on climate change and
the impacts of climate change in grades 9 through 12 in all of
the following courses:
(1) All science courses, including electives, that are
subject to the Illinois Science Standards or the Next
Generation Science Standards, including physical science,
life science, earth science, and engineering design.
Science courses under this paragraph (1) may include, but
are not limited to, all of the following:
(A) Biology.
(B) Geology.
(C) Oceanography.
(D) Environmental science.
(E) Advanced Placement Biology.
(F) Advanced Placement Environmental Science.

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(G) Zoology.
(H) Plant science.
(I) Botany.
(2) All courses that are subject to agricultural,
food, and natural resources learning standards and that
address food, food systems, food production, and
sustainability. These courses may include, but are not
limited to, all of the following:
(A) Agronomy.
(B) Horticulture.
(C) Agribusiness.
(D) Plant science.
(E) Soil science.
(3) All courses, including electives, that are subject
to the Illinois Learning Standards for Social Science in
civics, geography, anthropology, economics, history,
sociology, and psychology.
(4) Career and technical education courses that impact
or are impacted by the environment or climate change,
including, but not limited to, all of the following:
(A) Engineering.
(B) Business.
(C) Law.
(D) Economics.
(E) Consumer economics.
(b) The State Board of Education shall convene a working

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group of students, educators, and experts in the area of
climate change. The working group shall include high school
students and classroom teachers in science, agriculture,
social science, and relevant disciplines that fall under
career and technical education. The working group may include
discipline-specific experts in climate change and the impacts
of climate change.
The working group shall be charged with all of the
following tasks:
(1) Identifying, evaluating, and, if deemed necessary
by the working group, modifying State learning standards
that address or relate to climate change.
(2) Developing additional learning standards for
climate change and determining the placement of these
additional standards into the State learning standards for
science, social science, career and technical education,
and agriculture.
(3) Creating climate change learning standards for any
additional content areas that the State Board of Education
deems appropriate or necessary.
(4) If deemed helpful or appropriate by the working
group, developing supporting documents that list all
required climate change learning standards across all
subject areas and disciplines in a single document.
(5) Creating climate change learning standards for
each of the courses identified in paragraphs (1) through

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(4) of subsection (a).
(c) As part of the task process under subsection (b), the
working group may use, without limitation, all of the
following issues and themes to guide the creation of new
learning standards and the modification of existing learning
standards:
(1) The basic foundation and definition of
human-caused climate change.
(2) The disproportionate impact climate change has had
and will have on traditionally marginalized people in
local communities and communities across the world, such
as in the Global South.
(3) The disproportionate challenges vulnerable and
traditionally marginalized people face in relation to
climate change. These challenges shall include, but are
not limited to, extreme events, health effects, food,
water, livelihood security, migration and forced
displacement, and the loss of cultural identity.
(4) Business, science, technology, engineering, and
mathematics opportunities associated with adapting to or
addressing the impacts of climate change.
(5) The importance of creating jobs and maintaining
livelihoods when responding to climate change and
fostering a sustainable economy.
(6) The role that companies and consumers can play in
addressing climate change in the present and in the

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future.
(7) The current and future impact of climate change on
the local, State, national, and global level, as well as
the impact on individuals and communities.
(8) The difference between climate change mitigation
and adaptation to climate change.
(9) The role that institutions, industries,
corporations, governments, and citizens can play in
creating a sustainable environment.
(10) Current events, such as natural disasters, air
quality, and sea levels rising, and how they connect,
contribute, or are affected by climate change.
(11) How various sectors, including, but not limited
to, agriculture, industry, transportation, energy, and
commercial and residential emissions, influence climate
change.
(12) The absence of scientific controversy regarding
the basic facts of climate change despite political,
economic, or social disagreements about climate change.
(13) How the human relationship with the land varies
across cultures, world views, and philosophies.
(14) The relationship between climate change and
habitat loss, declines in biodiversity, land use,
pollution, populations, and overharvesting.
(15) The relationship between rapid industrialization,
carbon emissions, rapid temperature increases, and the

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increasing frequency of environmental and ecological
impacts.
(16) Specific procedural steps a person, school, or
community can take to actively address climate change.
The State Board of Education may add other issues and
themes related to climate change to State learning standards
based on input from the working group.
(d) The State Superintendent of Education shall prepare
and make available to school boards instructional materials
and professional development training for educators that may
be used as guidelines for development of a unit of instruction
under this Section.