Project Summary: Through this project, an interdisciplinary group of faculty from
across the University of Toledo including social and physical scientists will develop five
stand-alone, online modules for 7-12 students to improve student (and teacher) learning
of climate change topics by addressing common misconceptions. Constructivist theory
says that misconceptions are a barrier to student learning and need to be addressed before
students can move on. This project addresses funding category D/M and goal 1 as
specified in the Cooperative Agreement Notice. The highly politicized topic of climate
change has many misconceptions held by students (and teachers alike). One particularly
pernicious misconception that haunts many teacher and college professor is “The ozone
hole is responsible for global warming.” Each module will address a misconception and
have a driving question related to the misconception. The modules will span topics from
the impact of greenhouse gases on terrestrial planets, impacts of climate change on local
populations and ecosystems, short-term weather versus long-term climate change,
economic risk: what are the consequences to doing nothing and reducing individual
carbon footprints. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of the misconceptions and modules
that we proposal, we expect teachers from subjects beyond science such as social studies
to utilize these modules. This three year project will include development of the module
using inquiry-based and critical thinking pedagogy, refinement with teacher involvement,
piloting of the modules with Toledo area students focusing on economically
disadvantaged and underrepresented groups and dissemination to the broader educational
community. Through the modules, we will promote critical thinking by students using a
Milne-type grid and counterfactuals to encourage students to use their creativity to
conceptualize key concepts in climate change science. We will engage students in inquiry
lessons utilizing NASA data, models and simulations including but not limited to
EdGCM, My NASA Data, GLOBE observation protocols, planetary data sets from the
NASA Space Science Data Center and satellite remote sensing data. The satellite data has
been processed by our research for research projects and includes MODIS, Landsat,
TRMM, and GRACE. The university’s Center for Curriculum Instruction (CCI), an
award winning facility dedicated to incorporating innovative technology into the
educational process, will design the web implementation of the modules. Formative
assessment will be performed throughout the development process and summative
assessment will be used to study the effectiveness of the program.