Plants and Climate Change Education (PLACCE)

A Peer Learning Group for Botanic Garden and Arboretum Education Professionals

Climate change is a major global challenge impacting plants—from the food we eat to the trees that cool our communities. At the same time, plants play a central role in many solutions that scientists and communities around the world are using to address climate change. Educating public audiences about the connection between plants and climate change can help cultivate scientifically-informed understandings of the importance of plants in the context of our changing world.

Given their unique resources, including diverse living collections, plant scientists and research networks, and plant science educators and communicators, botanic gardens and arboreta have rich potential to engage the public with climate change through the lens of plants.

The U.S. Botanic Garden (USBG) has assembled a cohort of peer institutions interested in exploring how botanic gardens and arboreta can maximize the impact of a plant-centered climate change education niche. This peer learning group, Plants and Climate Change Education (PLACCE), is dedicated to learning together; creating and testing plant-centered climate change education models; and sharing new understandings, resources, and best practices across the public gardens community.

• Learn about the 2022-2024 PLACCE Cohort >>

2024-2026 Participants include:

Botanical Garden of the Piedmont - Charlottesville, VA

Project: "Head, Heart, and Hands: Climate Change Knowledge, Speaking, and Planting for Teenagers"

The Botanical Garden of the Piedmont in Charlottesville, Virginia piloted a climate change curriculum focused on empowering teenagers with knowledge, speaking skills, and garden planting experience. The target audience was tenth graders from public and private schools in the Charlottesville area. Over the course of five Saturdays, a self-selected group of tenth graders studied advanced plant-relevant climate change information; learned and practiced public speaking; and prepared, planned, and planted a meadow garden. We chose tenth graders (fifteen years old) to provide a sense of agency and power for students at a stage of life where young people often feel powerless. One of the most powerful things they can do is learn to speak cogently, accurately and engagingly about essential matters.

Trees Atlanta - Atlanta, GA

Project: "Project ACER: Atlanta Canopy Education and Research"

Project ACER, or Atlanta Canopy Education & Research, is a community science project for high school students in the Metro Atlanta area that highlights the importance of our urban forest ecosystem in mitigating the effects of anthropogenic climate change. This four-part series introduces students to the concept of ecosystem services, focusing on four primary benefits. During a field trip to the Atlanta Beltline Arboretum, students collect data on individual trees. Students enter the data they collected into a program called i-Tree and analyze the results to better understand the extent that trees provide people with benefits, especially when it comes to climate change. Through Project ACER, we hope to collect data on all 6,000+ trees within the Atlanta Beltline Arboretum to calculate and communicate its collective ecosystem services to nearby communities.

National Tropical Botanical Garden at the Kampong - Miami, FL

Project: "Resilient Plants: Plants and People Reacting to a Changing Climate"

The Kampong of the National Tropical Botanical Garden, located in Miami, Florida piloted a climate change curriculum focused on the effects of saltwater intrusion, and heat on plant life and human systems. The target audience was middle and high school students in local public schools. The curriculum included a summer internship for high school students, guided field trip experiences to the garden, and a teacher professional learning workshop. Our intention was to use our existing food forest plot to demonstrate how increasing temperatures can affect agri-ecosystems, and in turn, access to food and to construct new plots where we can explore plant survival and adaptations to saltwater intrusion comparing native coastal plants and common ornamentals.

Missouri Botanical Garden - St. Louis, MO

Project: "Unfolding Nature's Calendar: Connecting Climate Change and Phenology"

Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, Missouri developed and piloted Unfolding Nature's Calendar, a K-12 curriculum that helps students explore the relationship between changes in phenology and climate change using one of the Garden's most valuable scientific resources, the herbarium. Before developing the curriculum activities, the Garden invited teachers to participate in a focus group on climate change education to assess the local need for resources on climate change. Then, Garden staff worked with researchers and scientists to develop the curriculum based on an authentic research project that showed changes in bloom time over the past 150 years at the Garden's Shaw Nature Reserve. Staff worked with teachers around St. Louis to pilot the lessons and made changes to the lessons based on educator feedback. At the end of the project, the Garden hosted a teacher professional development workshop on climate change. At this workshop, educators explored climate change through hands-on activities as the pilot teachers demonstrated each of the curriculum unit lessons, and the group went on a behind the scenes tour of the herbarium. 

Gardens at Golden Gate Park - San Francisco, CA

Project: "Growing with the Seasons: Building Climate Understanding and Empathy in Primary Students"

Gardens of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, California, adapted an existing field trip program in the Children’s Garden at the San Francisco Botanical Garden to incorporate foundational climate education. The project serves Kindergarten through 3rd grade students from schools in San Francisco’s environmental justice communities through free, bilingual (English and Spanish) field trips that take place multiple times each year over several years.

During hands-on visits, students observe and care for the garden while exploring local weather patterns, how weather affects plant growth, and how these observations help explain San Francisco’s climate. By combining repeated outdoor experiences with climate-focused investigations, the project aims to build young learners’ understanding of climate science while fostering a lasting connection to the natural world. 

United States Botanic Garden - Washington, DC

Project: "Engaging Students with Plant Science: Biodiversity and the Plants We Eat"

The United States Botanic Garden used food plants as the focus of a teacher professional learning initiative. Secondary science teachers participated in a workshop that modeled hands-on investigations related to plant trait diversity in changing environmental conditions. A cohort (“Growhort”) of teachers adapted these activities for use in the classroom. They also engaged their students in garden-based learning about food plant biodiversity in their school gardens and through field trips to the U.S. Botanic Garden. This model emphasizes teacher-to-teacher sharing, combining the plant expertise and resources of a botanic garden with teachers’ practical and pedagogical expertise. 

2023-2024 Participants:

Hoyt Arboretum - Portland, OR

Tree Health in a Changing Climate: Connecting 7th Graders to the Western Redcedar

Hoyt Arboretum Friends in Portland, Oregon piloted a climate change curriculum focused on the native Western Redcedar tree, connection to nature, and community science. The target audience was middle school students in public schools, specifically 7th graders and their teachers. The curriculum included fall and spring classroom lessons taught by Arboretum staff as well as fall and spring field trips to the Arboretum. Social-emotional learning and tree-related science topics were combined with the intention of deepening the students' connection to nature as well as their understanding of how the changing climate is impacting tree health. 

Contact: Nina Avila, nina@hoytarboretum.org

Lyon Arboretum - Honolulu, HI

E ola nā mea ulu o Hawai’i: Thrive, the Growing Things of Hawai’i

Harold L. Lyon Arboretum offered the general public several opportunities to learn about native and culturally significant plants and how climate change affects their existence through outreach events as part of the existing education and outreach program at Lyon. The target audience was the general community, which may not have been able to identify the difference between native and non-native plants and who was not aware of the impact that climate change is having on these plants. A native plant class, a documentary showing, and participation in outreach events sponsored by other organizations were part of the Lyon PLACCE project. The events provided hands-on learning and fun activities to engage the public, who would then be able to share the information they learned with others. 

Contact: Raedelle Van Fossen, raedelle@hawaii.edu

Naples Botanical Garden - Naples, FL

The D.R.A.G.O.N. (Dedicated Researchers Adventuring for Greener Outdoors Now) Squad

Naples Botanical Garden (NBG) piloted D.R.A.G.O.N. Squad, an out-of-school time program for 6th and 7th graders at Immokalee Community Academy. The program started with a one-week summer intensive that transitioned to a weekly afterschool program for the school year. An acronym for Dedicated Researchers Adventuring for Greener Outdoors Now, the D.R.A.G.O.N. Squad learned about plants and climate change through hands-on projects, games, and field trips. During these trips, students were introduced to the diversity of plants in Southwest Florida, as well as regional climate change threats and solutions, and the people working to help the region adapt. On the school campus, students led two hands-on projects during their 32 after-school meetings with guidance and enrichment from NBG educators. 

Contact: Britt Patterson-Weber, BPatterson-Weber@naplesgarden.org

Reiman Gardens - Ames, IA

Science Communication Fellowship

Reiman Gardens’ Science Communication Fellowship is a training program for local scientists based on a framework called Portal to the Public (managed through the Institute for Learning Innovation) that involves relationship building, professional development, and face-to-face conversations at informal science education institutions like zoos, science centers, and botanical gardens. Using the Portal framework, our staff taught scientists working in fields related to plants and climate to connect to public audiences through inquiry, curiosity, and hands-on activities that tie to their research. Our annual program involved four on-site workshops focused on communication strategies for a wide range of audiences, creating memorable learning experiences through personal connection, hands-on activity development using gamification and sequenced questions, and responsive facilitation - learning to read audiences to provide targeted support.

In addition to the workshops, staff provided each scientist with one-on-one mentoring, a plant-centered overview of climate change, practice guiding conversations with the public, and training from other experts in creative strategies for communicating science such as collaborative storytelling and improv. Each scientist created scalable activities with lesson plans, and presented them at staff-facilitated programs at Reiman Gardens, from science fair-type drop-in events to short engaging lessons for adults or youth camp attendees, and even a brand new Plants & Climate Symposium featuring national and regional speakers. 

Contact: Sara Merritt, smerritt@iastate.edu

UC-Davis Arboretum and Public Garden - Davis, CA

Climate-Ready Gardening Program

The UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden piloted the Climate-Ready Gardening Program. Our target audience included college students, community volunteers and community members of all ages.In order to expand our community’s climate literacy and empower gardeners to take action in their own backyards, we created three program components that include an Outreach Training, a Public Program series, and an online Gardening Toolkit. 

Contact: Rachel Davis, ramdavis@ucdavis.edu

United States Botanic Garden - Washington, DC

Cocktails and Conversations: Bridging Plant-Focused Climate Change Research and Practice

The U.S. Botanic Garden piloted Cocktails & Conversations, a series of panel discussions exploring the intersection of plants and climate change in Washington, D.C. with local researchers, community-based organizations, and government agencies. The target audience was local (D.C.) adults, particularly younger adults. The three programs in the series took place on weeknight evenings in the U.S. Botanic Garden Conservatory. Attendees had an opportunity to explore the Conservatory, purchase food and beverages from a D.C. chef, and engage in informal conversation before and after the panel discussion. Panel discussions were moderated by the USBG Executive Director, and covered the topics of local wetlands and climate change, the connection between trees and climate change, and urban resilience in D.C. in the face of climate change. 

Contact: Grace Anderson, grace.anderson@aoc.gov