Description:

Global climate change (GCC) is a crucial environmental issue that is challenging citizens all over the world.With an effective collaboration between researchers, scientists, and teachers, conceptual frameworks and methods can be developed for creating climate change content for classroom implementation. Such frameworks will enable teachers to educate their students about evaluating environmental risks and developing behavioral skills needed to mitigate the negative impacts and adapt to the upcoming changes in the environment (Bardsley, 2007).  

Objective and Research Questions:

This research paper focuses on how teachers’ conceptualized content knowledge about global climate when provided with a place-based and culturally congruent content, focused on essential principles of climate science (EPCS-National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), 2009). We discuss how teachers’ content knowledge and understanding about climate change developed over the course of the global climate change education professional development program and how teachers conceptualized the phenomenon of global climate change.The following research questions guided our effort:

What is the structure of teachers’ knowledge of climate change?

What is the level of teachers’ understanding of principles essential to understand Earth's climate system?

Theoretical Framework:

The Earth Science Literacy Initiative (ESLI) (National Science Foundation (NSF), 2009) and the climate Literacy document: The Essential Principles of Climate Science [EPCS](National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), 2009) both provide a framework for presenting climate literacy content that aligns with how scientists conceptualize their work within an earth system approach. For example, Big Idea 3 of the ESLI (NSF, 2009) states that Earth is a complex system of interacting rock, water, air, and life which requires an integrated approach to science teaching Thus, these big ideas not only embody the ways in which scientists conceptualize their work but also respect the holistic view of the earth prevalent in native cultures.

Unfortunately, research related to teachers’ earth science content knowledge has not focused on an earth systems approach, rather researchers have examined teachers’ misconceptions about isolated earth science concepts, such as moon phases (e.g. Schoon, 1995) and plate tectonics (Libarkin & Anderson, 2005). While this research (e.g. Boyes, 1995; Dove, 1996; Libarkin, Anderson, & Dahl, 2005) implies teachers’ lack of knowledge and awareness of earth as a system, it does not provide direct information about teachers’ earth system knowledge. Previous studies of both teachers and students have shown existing misconceptions in their understanding about global climate change (Cordero et. al 2002, 2008). Both teachers and students use the terms “global warming” and “global climate change” interchangeably and often suggest stratospheric ozone depletion as one of the leading causes of global climate change. Thus, naive theories exist in the constructs of individual understanding about climate change that need to be addressed in specific professional development settings. Hence, our study focused on eliciting understanding how the secondary science teachers enrolled in the program conceptualize global climate change and how that understanding changed over the course of the program.

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