Student Learning Outcomes Using Model-based Climate Literacy in Secondary Geo-Science Classrooms
Abstract
Effective decision making about global climate change necessitates understanding information about the Earth's climate over multiple spatial and temporal scales. K-12 climate literacy efforts are supported by the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013) and the Essential Principles for Climate Literacy (NOAA, 2009). However, understanding Earth's climate remains challenging for K-12 students. They underestimate the impact of changing climate on various ecosystems (Shepardson, Niyogi, Choi & Charusombat, 2009) and perceive uncertainty as complete lack of information (Pallant & Lee, 2015; Pruneau, Gravel, Courque & Langis, 2003). This study assesses secondary students' reasoning about global climate change through investigations based on the use of an online, computer-based global climate modeling tool, grounded in authentic NASA data (EzGCM). Supported by NSF project CliMES (Climate Literacy and Modeling Epistemology of Science), we used a model-based perspective (Forbes et al., 2015) for designing a three-week, NGSS aligned curriculum module grounded in EzGCM. This curriculum afforded opportunities for students to use "big data" for predicting and describing the Earth's climate and global climate change. Implemented in ten secondary Geoscience classrooms in Spring 2018, students engaged with EzGCM to investigate the concepts of anomaly, the changing rate of increase in average global temperatures, and the long-term record of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Students' knowledge of climate data and their engagement with EzGCM were analyzed through quantitative and qualitative analysis of data obtained from concept inventory, student modeling tasks, and student interviews. We specifically asked 1) how do secondary geoscience students conceptualize Earth's climate and global climate change? and,2) how does a model-based science sequence promote students' reasoning about climate? Our results demonstrate that students were able to use EzGCM to obtain relevant data. Their meaningful engagement with EzGCM through comparing simulations representing stable and predicted Earth's climate, enabled them to predict, hypothesize, and draw causal explanations about the phenomenon of average increase in global surface temperatures.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFMED31E1093C
- Keywords:
-
- 0805 Elementary and secondary education;
- EDUCATIONDE: 0810 Post-secondary education;
- EDUCATIONDE: 0825 Teaching methods;
- EDUCATIONDE: 0830 Teacher training;
- EDUCATION