92nd American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting (January 22-26, 2012)

Monday, 23 January 2012
Developing Climate Change Learning Modules for High School Educators
Hall E (New Orleans Convention Center )
Patrick L. Lawrence, Univ. of Toledo, Toledo, OH; and K. Czajkowski

With funding support from the NASA Global Climate Change Education Program, a group of faculty, educators and web designers at the University of Toledo are working on the creation of five stand-alone, online modules for 7-12 students to improve student (and teacher) learning of climate change topics by addressing common misconceptions. Constructivist theory says that misconceptions are a barrier to student learning and need to be addressed before students can move on. Each module will address a misconception and have a driving question related to the misconception. The modules will span topics from the impact of greenhouse gases on terrestrial planets, impacts of climate change on local populations and ecosystems, short-term weather versus long-term climate change, economic risk: what are the consequences to doing nothing and reducing individual carbon footprints. This three year project will include development of the modules using inquiry-based and critical thinking pedagogy, refinement with teacher involvement, piloting of the modules with Toledo area students focusing on economically disadvantaged and underrepresented groups and dissemination to the broader educational community. We will engage students in inquiry lessons utilizing NASA data, models and simulations including but not limited to EdGCM, My NASA Data, GLOBE observation protocols, planetary data sets from the NASA Space Science Data Center and satellite remote sensing data.

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