1 Geoscience Education
Sunday, 23 March 2014
10:15 AM - 12:00 PM
Heritage Salon E
CONSTRUCTING A CLIMATE CHANGE UNIT FOR HIGH SCHOOL BASED ON THE INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE (IPCC) FRAMEWORK
Paper number: 1-2
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 10:20 AM – 10:40 AM
Authors
Abstract
The NGSS have put Climate Change at the forefront of high school Earth science education. However, most Earth science textbooks and curriculum outlines simply imbed climate study into a weather unit. High school Earth science teachers should now consider the best way to organize the study of climate change into an independent unit. Here, I present an instructional method to organize a climate change unit that adheres to the NGSS as well as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). High school students become members of a mock IPCC as they learn about the 3 Working Groups of the IPCC and generate their own Assessment on Climate Change. By creating this unit, students (1) create a way to mentally organize new information on climate change, (2) form a conclusion about climate change based on a scientific framework, and (3) understand how science is developed, reviewed, and communicated.