Maryland Delaware Climate Change Education Assessment and Research (MADE-CLEAR): Assessing the needs and engaging the community
Abstract
MADE-CLEAR is a regional collaborative partnership building sustainable capacity for effective and relevant education across multiple aspects of climate change within Maryland and Delaware. Our approach is a collaborative one informed by formal and informal education contexts; relevant systemic education policies and practices; and curricular, instructional, and technological capacities. Our project team includes climate scientists, learning scientists and education practitioners, and the project leverages partnerships with state departments of education, government agencies, informal education organizations and other stakeholders. Over the past year, the MADE-CLEAR team has reviewed regional and national climate educational materials and policies, as well as barriers and effective practices to teaching controversial topics such as climate change. We have formally and informally engaged stakeholders through our Maryland-Delaware Climate Change Education Summit along with smaller meetings and workshops. We also conducted needs assessments with regional education leaders including K-12 science supervisors, university faculty, and staff at informal education organizations. We identified four shared needs among these groups: 1) professional development focused on climate change for K-12 teachers, informal educators, and university faculty; 2) regionally-specific and interdisciplinary climate change education resources; 3) a focus on critical thinking and inquiry skills; and 4) support for networking and communities of practice focused on climate change education. Building directly from this community input, we have developed an implementation plan that seeks to catalyze climate education in Maryland and Delaware by 1) embedding climate science into formal and informal education; 2) building and sustaining the capacity of educators to deepen student understanding of climate change; 3) utilizing learning principles and the sociocultural diversity of our region to develop effective, scalable and transferable models of climate education; and 4) advancing policies and practices for climate change education. Our initial steps include creating a resource on regional climate change impacts specifically for K-12 and informal educators, which will draw heavily from community input on content and delivery.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2012
- Bibcode:
- 2012AGUFMED23A0741G
- Keywords:
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- 0805 EDUCATION / Elementary and secondary education;
- 0815 EDUCATION / Informal education;
- 1600 GLOBAL CHANGE