MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Since President Trump took office in January, some climate-related data has been scrubbed from federal agency websites. While scientists are concerned about disappearing data, it also disrupts teachers' lesson planning. As Maine Public Radio's Molly Enking reports, there are efforts underway to ensure educators can still access the tools they need.
RUTH POLAND: Are you getting the fish now?
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #1: Oh, I got one.
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #2: How?
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #3: Wait, you actually got one?
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #2: Oh, wait. I got one too.
MOLLY ENKING, BYLINE: In Ruth Poland's advanced environmental science class in Bar Harbor, Maine, students are creating terrariums that mimic nutrient cycling between water and plants.
POLAND: OK, so here is the document you're going to be filling out. Please read it. It's mostly about the carbon cycle.
ENKING: Poland's students have nearly completed the ecology section. The next unit is on energy. But when Poland started reviewing her upcoming lesson plans, she ran into a snag. For years, she's had students use an online tool from the Department of Energy as part of an assignment. Now, the web page is gone, and it's not the only resource she can't find.
POLAND: This is, like, the energy infrastructure map, but there's stuff missing. Like, they won't have the carbon emissions associated with those anymore. That sort of stuff. And I'm worried that this won't be available into the future.
ENKING: What Poland is witnessing is something many science educators are experiencing.
MARGARET WANG: Yes, there are a lot of resources that are being taken down and data that's being taken away on federal sites.
ENKING: Margaret Wang is executive director of SubjectToClimate, a national educational nonprofit that prepares ready-made lesson plans for teachers on climate change. Wang's team have been hard at work these last few months keeping track of links that have vanished from their lesson plans and trying to replace them when possible. A former teacher herself, Wang says she knows what it's like to be incredibly busy and suddenly hit roadblocks in lesson planning.
WANG: That might be the point where you decide - you know what? - I'm just not going to teach about it.
ENKING: Lourdes Vera, an assistant professor of environmental science at University of Buffalo (ph), had used one of the EPA's interactive tools in her college-level classes to show how pollution can impact low-income communities.
LOURDES VERA: The students can very easily see and visualize the correlation between asthma rates and whether a neighborhood was historically red-line.
ENKING: It was one of the first online resources removed by the Trump administration in 2025. But now, a new copy of the tool is available, thanks in part to a collaborative called the Public Environmental Data Partners. Established during the First Trump administration, Vera says the coalition, which she volunteers for, has rebuilt many online tools that had been removed from government websites.
VERA: During the first Trump administration that we really could build that infrastructure and create those lists of URLs to track. So, you know, we're not starting from scratch now. We've been building this for eight years.
ENKING: These resources are known to some educators and, Wang said, word is spreading.
WANG: I painted you a story of a teacher that may no longer teach about it 'cause it's not there, but I also painted a story of another teacher that will find it because there are indeed a lot of nonprofits working together to try to make it accessible.
ENKING: And science teacher Ruth Poland says that climate education isn't going anywhere because it's in high demand.
POLAND: Students ask to learn about climate change because they know that they're going to have to deal with it and they're curious about what's going on. They want to know the truth.
ENKING: The Department of Energy and NOAA did not respond to requests for comment from NPR. The EPA said in a statement that the department is shifting its priorities to match President Trump's executive orders.
For NPR News in Portland, Maine, I'm Molly Enking.
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