The Climate and Resilience Education Task Force (CRETF) was founded in 2018 by the National Wildlife Federation and a cohort of NGO, city, state and federal partners and is now co-managed with WE ACT for Environmental Justice. CRETF is an intergenerational coalition of students, educators, NGOs, and community members working to expand access to climate education, teacher training, and green Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs in New York’s P-12 schools. CRETF’s Youth Steering Committee (YSC) provides New York high school students with the tools to advocate for their own climate education. The YSC emphasizes the importance of youth-led, solutions-based projects and activities that promote civic engagement.

Together, since 2020, the CRETF and YSC have:

• Created the first New York State climate education platform;

• Drafted a comprehensive climate education bill -  - with student input - that was introduced in the New York State legislature in November 2023 as S278A/A1559A.

• Successfully advocated for the inclusion of climate education in NYC's strategic plan, PlaNYC: Getting Sustainability Done (2023);

• Successfully advocated for the inclusion of climate education in the Climate Act's final scoping plan;

• Collaborated with Subject to Climate to create a climate-focused curricular resource hub for New York State teachers;

• Organized student-led roundtables, listening sessions and meetings with NYC teachers, staff from the NY State Governor’s office, Mayor’s Office, NYSED and Board of Regents;

• Submitted the first climate education budget proposals to the Governor and the NY State legislature;

• Launched the first comprehensive climate education survey of NYC teachers, in 2021, in partnership with the teacher's union, which garnered over 1,500 responses;

• Created a toolkit with curated K-12 climate education curriculum resources for students and educators.