Vaccine hesitancy continues to be prevalent in the United States, especially in relation to the COVID-19 vaccines and its boosters, which have been made increasingly available for public use as the pandemic has progressed. There continues to be concern surrounding the safety and health of secondary or high school education professionals as they transition back to in-person learning and working opportunities. The present study highlights how information dissemination regarding the COVID-19 vaccine has varied among New Jersey secondary or high school teachers throughout the pandemic. The survey was completed online through the PsychData platform by 269 participants between March and July 2022. Participants received the opportunity to complete the survey via email. Afterwards, data were exported and analyzed using Microsoft Excel and SAS 9.4 Analytics Software and stratified by various clinical and demographic-based variables. While trusted agencies and media outlets identified by participants varied, most participants identified the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (65.4%), primary care providers (37.5%), and state health departments (28.6%) as their top trusted sources for information related to COVID-19 vaccines. Overall, COVID-19 vaccination advocacy and educational efforts should continue across the state of New Jersey and elsewhere, especially as more variants emerge and boosters become available.
Increasing acknowledgement of climate change (CC) has encouraged various responses, such as education standard mandates. In 2021, New Jersey (NJ) became the first U.S. state to require K–12 CC education across subjects, effective fall 2022. This necessitated introductory science courses on CC to support high school (HS) curricula. Thus, NJ Safe Schools Program (NJSS) created a new course titled, “Introduction to HS Students to CC, Sustainability, and Environmental Justice (EJ).” Given that the COVID-19 pandemic continues (2020–2023 school years) and vaccination coverage varies, this course was developed and approved in an asynchronous online format. Its five modules cover environmental science, CC, natural disasters and extreme weather events, sustainability, including energy conservation and efficiency definitions, and EJ. A 20-question survey included at the end, modified/adapted from a larger nationwide U.S. Student Conservation Association (SCA) survey 2019–2020, examined the perspectives of HS students concerning CC. Selected volunteer NJ HS enlisted students (n = 82/128 finished) to pilot this course February–April 2022. Results such as average scores ≥90% suggested success regarding initial knowledge and awareness gained; for individual modules, two knowledge checks >80% and three knowledge checks >90%. The SCA survey results, overall and by region in NJ, highlighted how most students felt about CC and extreme weather events, plus issues such as EJ. This NJSS introductory course opened in July 2022 for NJ public county secondary school districts and comprehensive HS with approved career-technical education programs, and potentially elsewhere.
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