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Deep Dive
Like evolution before it, climate change requires careful treading in curriculum
A wealth of resources are available to help educators apply scientific
framing and show students how climate change may be impacting their
lives and communities, regardless of politics.
Lauren Barack
April 15, 2020
Don Haas understands educators may hesitate before they launch into their climate change lessons with students.
Certainly, tense politics and heated conversations have played a part
when the topic is raised on a national level, not unlike the debate
that has raged over evolution through the years. Yet the director of
teacher programs at the Paleontological Research Institute (PRI) in New
York believes educators may be surprised at what they encounter after
they dive into their first lesson.
“Almost universally, from those who try it, they self-censor,” Haas,
also a former high school science teacher, told Education Dive. “But
they don’t get much pushback.”
That doesn’t meant Haas hasn’t heard about some classroom issues. But
he believes with some professional support, along with tools to boost
teachers' confidence, climate change can be woven into any subject and
taught to any grade.
Given the remote learning environment most educators and students are
now in as a result of the coronavirus epidemic, there are a wealth of
resources online that classes can pull from to incorporate this timely
subject in digital lessons. These can be used to not only help
educators apply scientific framing, but also to help students see how
climate change may be impacting their lives and communities.
Make it local
Haas and the team at PRI are so eager to support teachers on the
subject, they’ve not only drafted a 284-page book, “The
Teacher-Friendly Guide to Climate Change," but made it available as a
free PDF online. (A physical copy is also available for $25 on the
site.) The guide walks teachers through educating students about
climate change, and it recently won the 2019 Friend of the Planet Award
from the National Center for Science Education.
To Haas, one of the best ways to help make students feel more connected
to climate change lessons is to personalize them. He suggests using
data from the community and often turns educators toward the National
Climate Assessment, a report published every four years that can
illustrate how climate and weather are changing in different regions of
the country. This allows students to see evidence of climate changes
happening in their own backyard, a concrete data point that takes the
opinion out of the subject and may even help them consider what can be
done to reverse it.
“The bottom line is climate change is real, it’s human-caused, and we can do things to make it less bad,” he said.
Focus on data
Eric Pyle, president-elect elect of the National Science Teaching
Association and a professor of geoscience education at James Madison
University, also points to professional development as a great resource
administrators can offer teaching staff before they deliver climate
change lessons to students.
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