The recently approved climate justice education minor on the Twin Cities campus, the first of its kind at an R1 university in the U.S., is advancing the University of Minnesota’s commitment to improving environmental, human, plant and animal health, by focusing on the One Health approach. This approach emphasizes that protecting one of those areas, protects all of them.

An urgent need

More specifically, climate justice is a strategy to ensure that efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change also address related social justice issues, such as the disproportionate impact of climate change on marginalized communities that contribute least to the problem.

“There is a major gap in education about climate justice,” says Marek Oziewicz, director of the Center for Climate Literacy (CCL) in the College of Education and Human Development, which offers the minor. “There was an institutional need for the minor, student interest and an existential need at this point to build on climate justice.”

Leveraging the impact of storytelling

Students who enroll will primarily focus on gaining an understanding of climate justice and using it to expand their storytelling skills, a powerful tool to engage people in advancing climate justice.

Nick Kleese, faculty advisor for the minor and associate director of community engagement in the CCL, knows firsthand the impact that storytelling can have on communities.

“I grew up on a family farm in Iowa,” he says. “The story that I, my parents and grandparents learned was that industrialization and maximalization were the only ticket that farmers had to be successful and that all of the physical health-related and environmental impact were unavoidable side effects of that.”

Kleese explains that this can contribute to communities like his having extremely polluted waterways and high rates of cancer.

"We can offer an alternative story that focuses on the benefits of non-mainstream agricultural practices," he says. “If young farmers are taking these courses, the skills they learn will allow them to maintain the love of the place they came from and vocations, while having a clear alternative vision for how their lives and work can be more aligned with the well-being of the planet.”

A united effort

A healthier planet requires all of humanity.

“You can be an engineer, chemist, bus driver or in any professional field, but in the end, we are all governed by the stories we accept as true,” says Oziewicz. “Through this minor, we want to help young people develop a set of skills to have agency in co-creating the stories of their lives instead of being just characters in someone else’s story.“

Kleese says that the CCL would love to collaborate with other University colleges, schools and units to advance climate justice education as a community.

The minor will be offered for the first time in fall 2026. Learn more about the climate justice education minor.