Learning Beyond the Numbers: Helping Students Make Sense of Climate Change
A new book by UC Irvine School of Education professors Asli Sezen-Barrie and Hosun Kang, with Mary K. Stapleton of Towson University, explores how data and storytelling can transform climate education.
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By Rachel Sampson
August 12, 2026 Every graph tells a story. Or at least it should. When students learn about climate change, they often begin with data. Charts showing rising temperatures. Maps documenting drought. Graphs tracking carbon emissions. These tools help students understand what's happening to our planet. But do they help students understand what those changes mean for the people, communities, and ecosystems experiencing them? A new book by UC Irvine School of Education professors Asli Sezen-Barrie and Hosun Kang, together with Mary K. Stapleton of Towson University, argues that effective climate education requires more than teaching students how to interpret data. It asks educators to help students question where data come from, whose experiences they represent, and how scientific evidence can be brought together with community knowledge to support thoughtful action. |
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Published by Harvard Education Press, Making Climate Justice Count: Teaching with Data Stories for Action offers a new framework for helping students connect scientific evidence with lived experience, local knowledge, and the interconnected stories of people, communities, plants, animals, and places. While the framework is designed for educators across K-12, the classroom examples featured throughout the book draw primarily from grades 7-12.
"As our capacity to generate and visualize data grows, so does our responsibility to teach students not only how to use data, but how to care about it, question it, and apply it with integrity," said Sezen-Barrie, professor and Stacey Nicholas Endowed Chair of Environmental and Climate Change Education in the UC Irvine School of Education.
Beyond the Numbers
Imagine a group of students investigating food waste in their school cafeteria. They collect data, identify patterns, and calculate environmental impacts. But the lesson doesn't end with the numbers. Students also talk with cafeteria staff and community members, asking different questions: Why is food wasted? Who is affected? What stories do those numbers tell?
That shift, from interpreting data to understanding the people, places, and living systems behind it, lies at the heart of the book.
The authors argue that while today's students have unprecedented access to climate information, data alone cannot answer the questions that matter most. Scientific evidence can reveal patterns of environmental change, but it cannot fully explain how those changes are experienced by people and communities or how they shape relationships with the natural world.
Introducing "Data Storying"
At the center of the book is a framework the authors call data storying.
Unlike traditional data storytelling, which focuses on communicating information, data storying invites students to make meaning from data by connecting scientific evidence with lived experience, community knowledge, and multiple perspectives.
Rather than asking only, What do the data show? students are encouraged to ask, Whose experiences do these data represent? Whose voices may be missing? How can scientific evidence and community knowledge work together to better understand the world around us?
"As our capacity to generate and visualize data grows, so does our responsibility to teach students not only how to use data, but how to care about it, question it, and apply it with integrity," said Sezen-Barrie, professor and Stacey Nicholas Endowed Chair of Environmental and Climate Change Education in the UC Irvine School of Education.
Beyond the Numbers
Imagine a group of students investigating food waste in their school cafeteria. They collect data, identify patterns, and calculate environmental impacts. But the lesson doesn't end with the numbers. Students also talk with cafeteria staff and community members, asking different questions: Why is food wasted? Who is affected? What stories do those numbers tell?
That shift, from interpreting data to understanding the people, places, and living systems behind it, lies at the heart of the book.
The authors argue that while today's students have unprecedented access to climate information, data alone cannot answer the questions that matter most. Scientific evidence can reveal patterns of environmental change, but it cannot fully explain how those changes are experienced by people and communities or how they shape relationships with the natural world.
Introducing "Data Storying"
At the center of the book is a framework the authors call data storying.
Unlike traditional data storytelling, which focuses on communicating information, data storying invites students to make meaning from data by connecting scientific evidence with lived experience, community knowledge, and multiple perspectives.
Rather than asking only, What do the data show? students are encouraged to ask, Whose experiences do these data represent? Whose voices may be missing? How can scientific evidence and community knowledge work together to better understand the world around us?
Hosun Kang (left) and Asli Sezen-Barrie
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"We want students to see climate change not simply as a scientific issue, but as one that intersects with sociopolitical and cultural systems, shaping the well-being of people, communities, and the living systems that sustain us," said Kang, professor in the UC Irvine School of Education. "Science becomes even more powerful when students connect evidence with empathy, relationships, and action."
The framework positions students not simply as recipients of scientific information, but as investigators, collaborators, and contributors to understanding the complex environmental challenges facing their communities. |
Bringing Climate Learning Close to Home
Drawing on years of collaboration with classroom teachers, climate scientists, ecologists, and community partners, the book demonstrates how global environmental challenges become more meaningful when explored through local places and experiences.
For example, students might examine climate records alongside the experiences of rural communities adapting to extreme weather, helping them understand how climate change shapes everyday life. Others reconstruct past climates through fossil pollen records, revealing how environmental changes and decisions made by one generation can have lasting effects on future generations. Students also explore changes in local bird migration and seasonal plant cycles, connecting scientific evidence with the ecosystems they encounter in their own communities.
Across these examples, climate change becomes more than an abstract global issue. Students investigate the places where they live, connect scientific evidence with community knowledge, and see how environmental change affects people, plants, animals, and the places they share.
Preparing Students for a Changing World
As communities around the world adapt to a changing climate, the authors argue that education must evolve alongside it.
For educators, that means moving beyond teaching students how to interpret data toward helping them understand how knowledge is created, whose perspectives are represented, and how scientific evidence can inform thoughtful decisions.
For families, it offers a hopeful vision of children engaging with complex environmental challenges through curiosity, compassion, and collaboration.
For scientists and community leaders, it demonstrates new ways to connect research with the communities it serves.
Ultimately, Making Climate Justice Count argues that the goal of climate education is not simply to help students understand climate science. It is to cultivate learners who ask thoughtful questions, consider multiple perspectives, and recognize the relationships between data, people, and the living world.
By connecting scientific evidence with lived experience, the book offers a hopeful vision for preparing the next generation to navigate a changing world with curiosity, empathy, and a deeper understanding of the communities and ecosystems they call home.
Interested in learning more? Visit the Harvard Education Press page for Making Climate Justice Count to read more about the book or purchase a copy. Use discount code HCPR26 when ordering through the publisher.
Drawing on years of collaboration with classroom teachers, climate scientists, ecologists, and community partners, the book demonstrates how global environmental challenges become more meaningful when explored through local places and experiences.
For example, students might examine climate records alongside the experiences of rural communities adapting to extreme weather, helping them understand how climate change shapes everyday life. Others reconstruct past climates through fossil pollen records, revealing how environmental changes and decisions made by one generation can have lasting effects on future generations. Students also explore changes in local bird migration and seasonal plant cycles, connecting scientific evidence with the ecosystems they encounter in their own communities.
Across these examples, climate change becomes more than an abstract global issue. Students investigate the places where they live, connect scientific evidence with community knowledge, and see how environmental change affects people, plants, animals, and the places they share.
Preparing Students for a Changing World
As communities around the world adapt to a changing climate, the authors argue that education must evolve alongside it.
For educators, that means moving beyond teaching students how to interpret data toward helping them understand how knowledge is created, whose perspectives are represented, and how scientific evidence can inform thoughtful decisions.
For families, it offers a hopeful vision of children engaging with complex environmental challenges through curiosity, compassion, and collaboration.
For scientists and community leaders, it demonstrates new ways to connect research with the communities it serves.
Ultimately, Making Climate Justice Count argues that the goal of climate education is not simply to help students understand climate science. It is to cultivate learners who ask thoughtful questions, consider multiple perspectives, and recognize the relationships between data, people, and the living world.
By connecting scientific evidence with lived experience, the book offers a hopeful vision for preparing the next generation to navigate a changing world with curiosity, empathy, and a deeper understanding of the communities and ecosystems they call home.
Interested in learning more? Visit the Harvard Education Press page for Making Climate Justice Count to read more about the book or purchase a copy. Use discount code HCPR26 when ordering through the publisher.
