Preliminary Results from the first cohort of teachers was presented at the American Geophysical Union's Fall 2011 meeting.
Our first hypothesis is supported by our finding that, at the classroom
level, the average level of student engagement/interaction is positively
related to the average achievement gains on the paper-and-pencil test
of the curriculum. In addition, we found that the greater the
disengagement, the lower the learning gains.
Climate change is one of the most complex scientific and social challenges we face today. Learning about climate change offers rich opportunities for students to learn both what we know about the causes and effects of climate change and how we know what we know. In this article, we describe what we learned from working with middle and high-school science teachers as they taught a unit about climate change in their classrooms. . .
Climate change is unlike many other topics taught in science. It is politically-laden and may be perceived as controversial in public debates because responses have immediate implications for contemporary human behaviors and practices that extend beyond the realm of science. In this paper we discuss what we learned and thought about in this project. . .