224 Geoscience Education III: Professional Development and Resources

Wednesday, 3 November 2010
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Room 201

INSPIRING CLIMATE EDUCATION EXCELLENCE: MEETING TEACHER NEEDS FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN CLIMATE SCIENCE

Paper number: 224-10
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 10:15 AM – 10:30 AM

Authors

Abstract

Teachers cite barriers to implementing climate education, including lack of confidence in climate science knowledge, difficulty aligning climate topics within curriculum and standards, difficulty finding high quality learning resources, and concerns about controversy in the classroom. Inspiring Climate Education Excellence (ICEE) is a NASA-funded project to help meet some of these needs. Following a pilot workshop, a suite of short professional development modules is being developed to help teachers understand and teach climate science, built around their expressed interests and needs, and the Essential Principles of Climate Science. ICEE seeks participation by secondary science teachers.

ICEE resources are being developed in partnership with GLOBE, the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) and the University of Colorado, Boulder Independent Learning Program. The project will help meet the professional development needs of teachers, including those participating in the upcoming GLOBE Climate Campaigns. Modules and self-directed learning resources will be disseminated in partnership with the National Science Digital Library (NSDL), through podcasts and other Web 2.0 tools. This presentation introduces the conceptual basis for the project, upcoming opportunities, and describes evaluation data from the pilot workshop and the assessment of teacher needs and knowledge related to climate topics, including strategies for working with diverse learners. http://cires.colorado.edu/education/k12/,