Curriculum Reviewer

About Climable

Climable is a woman-led nonprofit in Cambridge, MA, with a mission to make climate science and clean energy understandable and actionable for everyone. Climable’s end goals are energy democracy (public participation in the energy transition) and climate resilience (improved avenues for anticipating, preparing for, and responding to climate disasters). We achieve these goals through a number of areas of work, one of which is training and educating future leaders (youth). Our education efforts include curriculum development to engage youth as young as 10 years old in climate science and energy. You can learn more about Climable on our website. 

About the Role

Climable is looking for current or past high school science teachers and/or curriculum developers that are passionate about engaging students in climate change science, clean energy information, and career/job exploration to review high school lesson plans and accompanying materials. Ideally, we are looking for folks that are able to commit to a longer-term, remote volunteer opportunity (unless you’re in the Boston area, then we could arrange in-person meet ups if desired). As a reviewer on our Teacher Advisory Board, you would be supporting core work of a small nonprofit and in turn, youth in the Greater Boston Area and beyond.

Climable completed a set of middle school lesson plans last year, which can be found on our website under the “Learn” section. Now, we are in the process of completing high school lesson plans covering the same general topics. While Climable team members have expertise in technical translation—distilling complex climate science and energy jargon into everyday, plain language—we are not educators. A Teacher Review Board is therefore crucial to ensure our curriculum is appropriate to high school students (i.e., challenging enough without being too dense, and covering relevant topics for the age group), and that the lesson plan materials will be useful for teachers.

Responsibilities

Working primarily with Climable’s Program Manager, a Reviewer is charged with reviewing lesson plan slides, teacher guides, and activities for 5 lesson plans, one at a time, and providing thorough feedback to help Climable create the strongest curriculum set we can (for a general high school audience, not AP Environmental Science students). A Reviewer’s essential duties include:

• Viewing lesson slides, including all linked materials
• Reading teacher guides in conjunction with the associated slides, assessing the usefulness and accuracy of the content, the usefulness of the format, etc.
• Meeting with Program Manager to provide feedback
• Viewing lesson & materials once more after edits are incorporated
• Providing final feedback over email or in a meeting
• Communicating with Program Manager regularly to update on progress & schedule feedback meetings as needed, etc.

The review process will move at a pace of 2 weeks per lesson, for a total of 10 weeks. If a volunteer wants to and feels capable of going at a faster pace, that’s welcomed. We are happy to be flexible. Reviewers will be paid a small stipend for their work of $50/per lesson. 

Minimum Qualifications

• Passion for teaching and inspiring youth to be lifelong learners, critical thinkers, and active members of their communities
• Experience teaching high school science using pre-developed lesson plans and/or experience developing high school-level lesson plans (ideally science or science-related)
• Strong communication skills, comfortable with remote communication
• Ability to give constructive and actionable feedback, not just criticism 

Beneficial Qualities

• Familiarity with Google Drive, Google Docs, and Google Meet
• Interest in climate action and clean energy
• Commitment to openness, transparency, equity, and justice
• Experience developing climate education materials