Common
misconceptions about climate change in young students and suggestions for best
practices in climate change education.
Journal
Articles
Faria,
Felipe, Kelly Klima, I. Daniel Posen, and Ines M.L. Azevedo. “A New Approach of
Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Outreach in Climate Change,
Energy, and Environmental Decision Making,” Sustainability
8 (2015): 261-271.
This
journal article argues that effective programs that teach science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics (STEM) well will increase the general public’s
knowledge of issues such as climate change, increase the number of people
interested in STEM careers, and help to prepare teachers to teach issues
surrounding STEM and climate change. They site a number of different research studies
that show a gap in knowledge in major energy issues in both K-12 and general
public and they connect this to a lack of understanding about climate change. They
first describe a number of different types of STEM programs across the country,
both for teachers and students separately. The authors then describe a new
program at Carnegie Mellon University that combines a STEM program for students
and teachers at the same time. They feel that model is successful because of
the engagement between the two audiences, the location on a university campus,
and the no cost to students and the stipends to teachers. This article may be
useful for people who are looking for best practices in starting a STEM
informal program at a University.
Ozdem,
Yasemin, Burckin Dal, Nilay Ozturk, Duygu Sonmez, and Umut Alper. “What is that
thing called climate change? An investigation into the understanding of climate
change by seventh-grade students,” International
Research in Geographical and Environmental Education 23 (2014): 294-313.
This
study looks at 7th grade Turkish students and their perceptions and
understanding of climate change. It is the start of a larger project funded by
the government in Turkey called ‘The Impacts of Climate Change and Raising
Awareness about Adapting the Climate Change’ and the results will be used to
shape climate change curriculum and develop summer climate change science
camps. The authors administered a 21 question survey of both qualitative and
quantitative questions to 646 7th graders in a variety of regions in
Turkey. The survey questions were grouped into four main areas: general
environmental concerns and experiences; awareness, knowledge, attitudes and
behavior as related to climate change; environmental values and actions; and
demographic measures. Students ranked climate change 8th in terms of
their primary environmental concern, behind things such as littering and air
pollution. Most students strongly agreed that climate change was a consequence
of modern life and the United States, but that they could not do anything about
it. The study also found their understanding of climate change was at a more
global, rather than local, level. The students also reported that their major
sources of climate change information include television, internet, newspapers,
and school. The curricular recommendations from this study include developing
the understanding of climate change on a more personal and community-wide level
and recognizing and using the media’s influence on student perception. This
article would be useful for middle school teachers and curriculum developers,
especially in the Turkish region.
Bofferding,
Laura and Matthew Kloser. “Middle and high school students’ conceptions of
climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies,” Environmental Education Research 21 (2015): 275-294.
This
study looks how two types of knowledge (system knowledge-understanding how
something actually works and action knowledge-knowing what behaviors and
actions can influence a situation) can affect middle and high school students’
comprehension of mitigation versus adaption strategies to climate change. The
researchers specifically studied students’ ideas and reasons for community-wide
climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies, how their understanding is
affected by being taught about climate change, and how do middle and high
school students compare in their understandings. 387 middle and high school
students from the California Bay Area were surveyed before and after a unit on
climate change and answers from two specific open-ended questions were focused
on in this study. The first asked for one specific action that could reduce the
student’s carbon dioxide emissions and to explain how it would reduce emissions
(mitigation strategy). The second question asked for one specific thing the
student or their community could do to prepare for or adapt to climate changes
and to explain why or how it would work (adaptation strategy). They found that
the majority of students still confuse mitigation actions with adaptation
actions, even after being taught the climate change unit. The recommendation
from this study is to increase the explicit instructions and activities about
both what adaptation and mitigation strategies are and how exactly those
strategies work. They also call for region-specific curriculum about climate
change to make these strategies more relevant to the students’ lives, as they
saw a majority of these students mention dealing with sea level rising as an
adaptation strategy, even when other studies find sea-level rise ranking
towards to bottom of climate change concerns. This article would be useful for
educators creating climate change curriculum focusing on mitigation and
adaptation strategies.
Shepardson,
Daniel P., Dev Niyogib, Soyoung Choia and Umarporn
Charusombatb,
“Seventh grade students’ conceptions of global warming and climate change,” Environmental Education Research 15
(2009): 549-570.
This
study looked at seventh graders from the Midwest US and their conceptions of
climate change, before they received any explicit climate change instruction.
91 students from 3 different schools were given a 5 item assessment that
included 4 open response questions and 1 draw and explain question. This study
showed that these students had a narrow and simplistic understanding of climate
change but lacked much depth about the issue. They identified that climate
change would only affect more local things like precipitation and weather
events but lacked understanding of the global consequences of climate change.
The students also identified problems for wild plants and animals with climate
change, but did not identify issues with domestic animals or agriculture. The
study’s authors identified a list of topics to be covered sequentially in a
curriculum to help deepen students’ understanding of this complex issue, such
as carbon cycling, greenhouse effect and gases, Earth’s tilt and orbit, and
climate change impacts. They also call for teaching about climate change in a
more holistic manner, by incorporating economic, political, and technical
aspects to instruction to deepen understanding. This article would be useful
for those creating an introductory and basic curriculum on climate change for
middle school students.
Parker,
Joyce M., Elizabeth X. de Los Santos, and Charles W. Anderson, “Learning
Progressions and Climate Change,” The
American Biology Teacher 77 (2015): 232-238.
This
article examines the ways students understand a broad set of ideas such as
climate change (learning-progression research) instead their understanding of
one specific concept (misconceptions research). Learning progressions are
‘descriptions of the successively more sophisticated ways of thinking about a
topic that can follow one another as children learn about and investigate a
topic over a broad span of time’ (223). These researchers focused on
understanding of the crosscutting concept Tracing
Matter and Energy as described in the Next Generation Science Standards.
They interviewed and analyzed written responses from elementary, middle, and
high school students from a variety of settings and states. The findings are
described in four levels of achievement from typical upper elementary students
(Level 1) to an integrated understanding of the topic (Level 4). They determine
that very few upper high school students achieve Level 4 understanding and are
able to consistently trace matter and energy, which is necessary to really
understand climate change and make informed and responsible decisions. To
improve understanding in the classroom, they call for more explicit instruction
regarding tracing matter and energy and precise language when instructing on this
topic. This article would be useful for teaching starting to implement the Next
Generation Science Standards and the cross cutting concepts along with a
climate change curriculum.
Opinion
Articles
Shaw,
Sophia. “It’s Time to Teach About Climate Change. Here’s How.” The Guardian, September 19, 2014.
The
author of this opinion article is calling for a massive effort to bring more
climate change curriculum into the classroom. Relying on past efforts to teach
climate change through tragic weather events such as floods or superstorms only
creates fear and drives kids away from the topic, she states. Instead,
education should allow students to ask their own questions and empower them to
find the answers with the necessary tools. She describes a new curriculum
developed by NASA and the Chicago Botanical Gardens that intends to give
students real world experiences about climate change and the tools to
investigate them. This resource would be useful for teachers looking for
reasons to support starting a climate change curriculum in their classroom and
a possible new curriculum to use.
Cherry,
Lynne and Doug Grandt. “On the Allure of Ostriches and New Paths in Climate
Change Communication.” The New York Times,
May 24, 2012.
This
opinion article focuses on a more positive way to approach climate change
education. They site research that explains psychologically why explaining the
scientific reasons behind something like climate change with a gloom and doom
message tends to cause people to run the other way and stick their heads in the
sand. ‘Motivated avoidance’ is what people will do when faced with a large and
complex problem. The authors feel the way to combat that especially with youth
is to increase their self-efficacy or their belief they can make changes in
their own life and in the world. Citing a book on the topic, there are a number
of ways to developing this in young people, such as building mastery through
successful projects, social modeling and communication with their peers, and
social persuasion. This resource would be helpful for educators looking for new
and innovative ways for motivating students to take action on climate change
issues.
Liverman,
Diana. “How To Teach About Climate Without Making Your Students Feel Hopeless.”
The Washington Post, August 20. 2014
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/08/20/how-to-teach-about-climate-without-making-your-students-feel-hopeless/
This
author describes an Introduction to Environmental Studies class she teaches and
how she has changed her way she approaches environmental issues such as climate
change. When she taught the class by focusing on the harm and damage humans are
doing to the Earth and its resources, she found students left the class feeling
hopeless and sad and started referring to the class as ‘Environmental
Depression’ instead. In order to make a change in her students’ outlook and
inspire them to take action, she followed suggestions from climate change research
and the notion that fear only motivates people to do less. Instead, she
structured her class around the positive and hopeful things humans have
contributed, such as clean air and water legislation, the international treaty
about the ozone layer, and low carbon public transport. She now finds her
students leave her class inspired to be a part of positive change. This resource
would be useful for any educator looking for a more positive way to teach about
serious environmental issues.
Dawson,
Vaille and Katherine Carson. “What Do Young People Really Know About Climate Change.”
The Conversation, November 3, 2013.
This
article describes research done on grade 10 students in Australia regarding
their basic understanding of climate change and global warming. They surveyed
438 students in Western Australia and when asked for responses to questions
asking what is climate change and global warning, only 1/2 and 1/3 of the
answers showed a basic understanding of the science behind those issues,
respectively. Confusing the ozone layer and the greenhouse effect was the most
common misconception within the written answers and most student also weren’t
aware of other greenhouse gases besides carbon dioxide. The authors’
recommendations for improving Australian students’ grasp of climate change
included introducing the topic earlier in the science curriculum, allowing for
interdisciplinary teaching of science topics when teaching climate change, and
for teachers to understand the alternate views students may have and ways to approach
those students. This resource would be helpful especially for Australian
teachers and those involved in revising science curriculum.
Websites
“The
Essential Principles of Climate Science,” NOAA, last modified April, 2015,
This
is a comprehensive guide for educators who aim to teach about climate change in
their classrooms with the goals to both meet academic standards and create
students who are climate literate. It starts with a guiding principle (humans
can take actions to reduce climate change and its impacts) and seven essential
principles necessary for understanding this complex topic. A number of large
agencies worked together to develop this guide and invited comments and
feedback from an even larger group of organizations and individuals. Each
principle includes why the topic is important, what makes it hard to teach the
topic, and grade specific teaching techniques, strategies and resources to use
while teaching the topics. The website is incredibly easy to navigate and would
be very useful for both veteran and novice teachers teaching climate change in
their classroom.
“Young
Voices for the Planet,” Young Voices on Climate Change, accessed November 7,
2015, http://www.youngvoicesonclimatechange.com/
This
website features films of young people taking action and making a positive
different on the Earth. The films include features on girl scouts who
distribute CFL light bulbs, a 9 year old boy from Germany who has helped to plant
million of trees, students in Massachusetts who are reducing their school’s
carbon footprint by sourcing local foods for their cafeteria. The website also
has suggestions for students on how to reduce their carbon footprint and curriculum
for teachers to incorporate climate change into their classroom. This website
will be incredibly motiving for young students to start making their own
positive change after watching what their peers are capable of.
Video
“The
Kiribati Project: What Kids Know about Climate Change,” CLRI NSW Social
Justice, last modified May 18, 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcKRYN9vloc
This
video interviewed kids age 4-17 from both Kiribati and Australia. Kiribati was
predicted to be the first island nation completely consumed by rising sea
levels and is less than 5000 km from Australia. The kids were asked questions about
their homes and what they know about climate change. The difference in their
answers was striking - climate change is a present and daily challenge for the
kids in Kiribati, even for the youngest ones interviewed. For the kids in
Australia, climate change is a much more remote and far off problem, if they knew
anything at all. This resource would be a great video for other kids to watch
to help them understand why for some people, climate change is a much more
immediate problem.
Extremely high quality guide--exactly what I was looking for!
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