GREENVILLE, S.C. — On one end of the classroom, high school juniors examined little green sprouts — future baby carrots, sprigs of romaine lettuce — poking out of the soil of a drip irrigation system they built a few weeks prior.
On the opposite end of the room, a model of a hydropower plant showed students how the movement of water can stimulate electrical currents. In this class in South Carolina’s Greenville County school district, students primarily learn about one topic: renewable energy.
“It’s an extremely important thing to study, especially now with all the new technology coming,” said 11th grader Beckett Morrison. In 2023, the school district built this facility, called the Innovation Center, to cycle in different career training programs every few years, based on local business needs.
Even as President Donald Trump declares climate change a “hoax” and cuts funding to fight it, school systems in both blue and red states are adding classes in fields like clean energy and infusing environmental sustainability lessons in construction, culinary and other career pathways, as part of an effort to prepare students for a workplace altered by climate change.
The trend comes as industries embrace emerging technology in an effort to remain globally competitive, adjust to environmental changes and reduce costs, state and school leaders said. Even jobs that historically have not been considered environmental careers are adapting to changing industry demands.
There’s another reason schools are adding sustainability focused courses, too: A growing number of young people, many of whom have lived through severe hurricanes, heat waves and other extreme weather events exacerbated by climate change, are worried about the warming planet and seek ways to alleviate it.
“They want to make sure the world is safe and clean for foreseeable generations,” said Dan Hinderliter, associate director of state policy at Advance CTE, an organization that represents state and school leaders of career and technical education.
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On the forefront of this movement is Delaware, a state with plans for all of its middle and high school CTE courses to include environmental lessons in the coming years.
The idea is for students in every industry — from carpentry to teacher training — to have some knowledge about sustainability and environmental impact, said Jon Wickert, the state’s director of career and technical education and STEM initiatives.
The goal is to help students understand how to reduce not only carbon emissions, but also other environmental and health harms, across professions, he said. Business accountants and building managers should consider ways to reduce energy output, which will also lead to reduced costs. Students in carpentry should know the health and environmental impact of dust from wood, plastic and fiberglass, and what happens when those materials pollute waterways, Wickert said.
“As a company, if our employees are healthy, that’s going to help our bottom line in terms of health insurance costs. We want our students to think in that manner coming out of our high school programs,” Wickert said. “So when they go to the workforce, they’re able to think bigger and think in ways that are connected.”
Instead of creating career pathways specifically for environmental jobs, the agency decided to add these lessons to existing middle and high school career education courses. For example, the state is integrating lessons on solar panel installation and energy reduction into coursework for electrical career pathways, rather than starting classes specifically on solar panel installation.
The impact of climate change is particularly acute for Delaware, which is the flattest state in the country and sits just above sea level. The state is projected to lose about 10 percent of its land to the ocean by the turn of the century.
“Every job is a green job,” said Denise Purnell-Cuff, a contractor who worked on the statewide plan with the Delaware Department of Education. “There is no disconnecting how we move forward in any area — there is no separating it from the environment.”
In recent years, clean energy jobs have grown faster than the rest of the U.S. economy. By 2030, two-thirds of all cars sold globally are expected to be electric, and more countries will rely on renewable energy as their main source of energy.
Under the Biden administration, schools were able to access some federal funding their states received from the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to launch climate-friendly and clean energy workforce initiatives. That law spurred progress in states where funding for climate programs is scant, Hinderliter said, but much of that funding was canceled last year by the Trump administration.
Without federal money for these programs, schools now are looking for other sources of funding to create greener CTE programs because of their community’s environmental, or economic, needs.
Last year, the Chicago Teachers Union successfully bargained for several green initiatives in their contract with the school district, including clean energy career pathways for students. In D.C. Public Schools, leaders are adding sustainability lessons like hydroponic gardening to the district’s agriculture program.
In Cook County, teachers at Buffalo Grove High School northwest of Chicago were looking for ways to add more science courses to the school’s catalog, which led in 2023 to the creation of the school’s sustainability pathway. Since then, enrollment in the academy has grown more than fivefold, to about 80 students, who take classes such as Introduction to Sustainability, Applications of Sustainability and Advanced Placement Environmental Science.
“We felt like it was important to engage in these conversations with the students and to get them to think about policy,” said Michael McPartlin, a science teacher in the academy. “They’re going to be the generation that’s shaping what the next steps look like.”
The high school sits in the Buffalo Creek watershed in Illinois. During their second year of classes in the academy, students take a course on Sustainable Aquatics Systems where they get the chance to test the water’s chemistry and learn about their community’s impact on the ecosystem.
Having local jobs that require these kinds of classes bolstered the idea to create the Sustainability Academy, said Angel Johnson, division head of math and science at Buffalo Grove High.
“It’s a growing field and has great opportunities with the job market,” Johnson said. “We noticed there were a lot of different jobs available in our community immediately after graduation.”
Advance CTE doesn’t keep a database of “green” CTE pathways, specifically, but the organization is working with more communities in recent years that want to add sustainability to their programs, Hinderliter said. “We noticed this trend continuing, particularly, with the last administration’s investments in infrastructure,” he said.
In conservative states where climate change is not a statewide priority, especially amid Trump’s attacks on it, communities are realizing these types of sustainable CTE programs have an economic and workforce benefit that goes beyond helping the environment.
“Ohio is a good example of this,” Hinderliter said. “A very red state now has three major metropolitan areas that all have climate literacy plans, climate action plans and are all focusing programs on environmental outcomes both in CTE and in non-CTE programs.”
In Greenville, where automotive and energy plants like BMW and GE Vernova are among the largest industries, students are learning about electric and hybrid vehicles and renewable energy sources. As beneficial as these lessons are for the environment, students are learning about the technology to boost their career options.
“All manufacturing has a sustainability component,” said Katie Porter, director of the CTE Innovation Center. Officials from those Greenville County industries helped decide which courses the Innovation Center would offer students when it opened three years ago.
Students like Morrison travel from high schools across the county to attend the center and enroll in one of five programs: clean and renewable energy, aerospace technology, automation and robotics, emerging automotive research or networks and cybersecurity.
Students in the clean energy classes can take what they’ve learned to study engineering in college, or they can pursue careers as electricians and energy auditors — jobs that do not necessarily require college degrees. In the center’s automotive classes, students are learning about electric and hybrid vehicles in addition to traditional gas engines.
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About 25 high school students are enrolled in this clean energy technology program at the Innovation Center. The three-year program culminates in a project from each senior that reflects what they learned throughout the courses. Last year, a student built a piezoelectric plate — a tile that looks like a body weight scale, but lights up and generates electricity when stepped on. His proposal was to install them in pedestrian areas downtown to generate small amounts of electricity for the city of Greenville. Throughout the class, students present their work to industry leaders in the community.
“The kids are so impressive about all of the stuff they’ve learned,” said Ethan Cox, who teaches the clean energy classes. Students can graduate the program with Occupational Safety and Health Administration certification, introductory certification on solar panels and 3D modeling, among other skills.
Students who take this class have different career goals — some of them are considering engineering or environmental jobs, others may go into electrician programs at the local community college.
The class has taught Morrison, the high school junior in the program, about energy sources he had never imagined. For his next project, he’s learning about a type of algae that, when exposed to ultrasonic frequencies, releases lipids that can be converted into biofuel.
He’s always cared about protecting the environment, but the energy courses at this school have helped crystallize that issue for him. In learning about clean energy, he’s also learning about solutions, no matter what industry he decides to pursue after he graduates. For Morrison, reducing society’s impact on the environment is as much a part of his career calculations as finding a good job.
“It’s one of the most important things,” Morrison said. “There’s no way to completely reverse our effects, but renewable energy is something that can help, will help and has helped.”
Kavitha Cardoza contributed reporting.
Contact staff writer Ariel Gilreath on Signal at arielgilreath.46 or at gilreath@hechingerreport.org.
This story about green jobs was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.
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