The design of effective teaching materials for climate change science

Initial progress on a project focused on developing more effective teaching paradigms for the topic of Global Climate Change will be presented. The first component of this work involves identifying student misconceptions about climate change through surveys and interviews. The results from a series of questionnaires given to primarily non-science undergraduates indicate that a majority of these students harbor significant misconceptions about the basic science related to global warming, and the relationship between global warming and ozone depletion. An item analysis and student interviews are used to further examine student thinking on these topics. The relationship between student ideas and strategies for changing these ideas are examined under the context of developing more efficient teaching tools. Subsequent activities in this project, which include the development of an inquiry-based learning environment that utilizes climate model science and data, will also be discussed.