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6
Closing Discussion:
Major Messages and Parting Thoughts
A
ndy Anderson began the closing discussion with a reminder of
the elements of an effective national response to climate change
that were articulated in America's Climate Choices: enacting policies
and programs that reduce risk by limiting the causes of climate change
and reducing vulnerability to its impacts. In his view, what this means, is
that, as a nation, the United States will need to consider when and how to
forgo current consumption in the interest of future well-being.1 America's
Climate Choices, he noted, "is saying that we're in this for the long haul,
and we need to think about how we are going to create and sustain the
cultural changes that we will need in order to respond appropriately to
climate change." He identified four primary challenges in providing the
nation's youth with education to sustain this appropriate response, draw-
ing on the presentations and discussion from throughout the workshop.
FOUR CHALLENGES
Challenge 1: Preparing for sustained efforts in the nation and in formal
schooling. Brian Reiser discussed the importance of learning progressions
as a basis for the framework for the new national standards, Anderson
noted. This is key because "the things that we would like kids to learn
they are not going to learn in a day or a week or a year. We have to think
1The conversation about the role of advocacy vs. education recurred during the conference
and is addressed explicitly in Chapter 4.
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64 CLIMATE CHANGE EDUCATION: FORMAL SETTINGS, K-14
about how we are going to have a sustained response in our schools to
the learning issues that kids face." Yet earth science, the location in the
framework for the new national standards on climate change, "is increas-
ingly being driven out of high schools," Anderson noted. This raises the
question of how the current structure of schools and curricula--and a
teaching force that has not, in general, had the education necessary to
teach effectively about climate change--will support the kind of sustained
response that is needed.
Challenge 2: Finding the proper role of formal schooling in the national
response. The workshop provided a variety of messages about the role
of formal schooling, Anderson noted, which can have quite different
implications. First, Daniel Edelson proposed a definition of geo-literacy
that encompasses elements that fit within the traditional science cur-
riculum (although he placed greater emphasis on human systems rea-
soning than the traditional science curriculum has), but also includes
decision making, which has not had a place in the science curriculum.
Thomas Marcinkowski offered another conception of what might go into
the school curriculum, incorporating both traditional aspects (knowledge,
cognitive skills, and competencies) and something new, in this case dis-
positions and behavior.
There was a lot of discussion, Anderson noted, about the degree to
which these ideas present a significant challenge to science education as it
is now configured. Core ideas are the guiding structures of current frame-
works, but they are generally taught as a list rather than as an integrated
set of ideas, he noted. Currently missing, in his view, are the crosscutting
concepts and the related practices. Eddie Boyes, in turn, identified the
"zone between the things nobody will do and the things everybody will
do as the natural place where education can be effective--suggesting that
that's what schools should focus on." While these ideas may converge,
they do not at present suggest a complete consensus about the conception
of or priorities for climate change education, Anderson remarked.
Anderson's own research has looked at how young people decide
what the truth is about a situation they are considering, and he has found
that they usually make use of personal and family knowledge, as well
as ideas from media and popular culture. "They often make judgments
about bias and self-interest in people and in organizations making the
claims--they are often pretty perceptive about why you would not trust
a particular person or group," he added. They rarely make use of knowl-
edge they learned in school, he noted, or make explicit judgments about
the scientific quality of evidence or arguments. Anderson finds this very
troubling--and a real challenge to schools--noting that dialogue can take
place only if people "understand when the people that they don't like
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CLOSING DISCUSSION: MAJOR MESSAGES AND PARTING THOUGHTS 65
and don't trust are still making a good argument." This point relates to
Challenge 3.
Challenge 3: Thinking about the role of values in an issue about which pas-
sions run high. There are several reasons why conflicting values seem to be
fueling passions in the discussion of climate change, in Anderson's view.
First, there is a marked culture gap between scientists and the public.
Climate scientists have been polled, he pointed out, about whether they
agree that climate change is happening, and consistently more than 95
percent of them agree that it is. Yet only 13 percent of the public believes
that more than 80 percent of scientists believe that global climate change
is happening, Anderson observed. That 13 percent includes people from
across the spectrum, he added: those who are alarmed or concerned about
climate change as well as those who are dismissive.
"There's just this huge difference between what scientists believe and
what the public believes that scientists believe," he commented. At the
same time, many science teachers believe they should teach both sides of
the climate change issue, although "in the opinion of scientists there are
not two sides--there is a set of established scientific findings," he added.
This gap probably reflects differences in the ways scientists and non-
scientists think about uncertainty, he suggested. Scientists have developed
particular ways of dealing with uncertainty, he observed. They recognize
that it is never entirely absent, and that they can never know that they
have found absolute truth, but there are methods they use to reduce the
uncertainty about the claims they make. For scientists, authority does not
rest with individual people but stems from arguments based on evidence.
"You don't trust somebody because he or she is smart or well positioned,"
he explained, "you say, `what's the evidence?'" Scientists rely on rigor
and research methods and on collective validation, peer review, and other
ways of achieving consensus in the scientific community.
"These are values," noted Anderson. Scientists believe in and live by
them, and face severe sanctions if they fail to do so. "That's why scientists
trust reports like America's Climate Choices and others," he added. "They
can't imagine the scientists who contribute to those reports violating those
values in a systematic way."
These scientific values need to be taken into account, he added, in
discussions of interdisciplinary climate change education. Many at the
workshop advocated interdisciplinary approaches, but, he suggested, the
disciplines are where those values reside. Scientists have developed their
understanding of what rigor, evidence, and collective validation mean
in the context of their fields of study. "We need to break down barriers,"
Anderson observed, "but if we abandon the standards and values that
make science important, have we given up the baby with the bathwater?"
It is an important function of education, he added, to teach students
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66 CLIMATE CHANGE EDUCATION: FORMAL SETTINGS, K-14
to understand those values and recognize that scientists are passionate
about them. "These are things that people argue about and get angry
about and stake their careers on," he observed. The barriers between, for
example, scientists and engineers remain, he added. The interdisciplinary
work is not necessarily happening at the faculty level. "When and how do
the engineers and the scientists and the people in the humanities come to
talk about policies and strategies?" Anderson asked.
Challenge 4: Using what we learn from research and innovation. The pro-
grams described at the workshop do demonstrate many ways of engag-
ing students across disciplines, Anderson noted. Curricula and programs
were examples of ways to connect social, political, and economic issues
to science. Others demonstrated ways of engaging many different people.
The Alliance for Climate Education, for example, engages high school stu-
dents who may be more interested in Lady Gaga than in climate science,
and Redmond High School engages students through vocational courses
focused on green technology and the building trades.
Closing Discussion
During the final session of the workshop, presenters, panelists, steer-
ing committee members, and attendees discussed themes and issues that
emerged. Workshop participants provided comments and engaged in dis-
cussion, followed by closing remarks by James Mahoney, Climate Change
Education Roundtable chair, and Martin Storksdieck, director of the Board
on Science Education and of the Climate Change Education Roundtable.
This section is organized around the major themes that emerged during
this discussion.
The Context of Climate Change Education
Several participants favored the idea that the study of climate
change should be encompassed in a much broader earth systems cur-
riculum and indeed should be a presence across the curriculum. James
Geringer returned to the challenge Edelson had raised at the beginning
of the workshop--should there be climate change education at all? From
Geringer's perspective, it is not possible to teach climate change in isola-
tion, because if it is isolated from an understanding of the bigger picture,
people do not recognize how climate change can affect their lives. He
emphasized that "if you understand the fundamental principles, such as
natural variability, natural cycles, your understanding of climate change
will come as a result." Geringer also highlighted the importance of teach-
ing kids about scientific uncertainty and risk management, adding that
"in many of our educational processes the students want to know is this
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CLOSING DISCUSSION: MAJOR MESSAGES AND PARTING THOUGHTS 67
yes or no.... It's only later in life they discover there are many answers."
He added that students need to be taught to reason and ask questions in
a way that helps them better understand the world.
Participants considered how climate change education could be posi-
tioned in K-14, wondering whether it is a great example of how to teach
other disciplines in an integrated cross-disciplinary way, or a core science
issue that should be taught on its own.
National and State Standards
Louisa Koch explained that she is very supportive of the new science
framework, because it is very important to take a national approach to
climate change education. The new framework and standards, one par-
ticipant pointed out, build students' awareness and sophistication level
gradually, "to the point where reasoning can come to bear and question-
ing can be pertinent." Michael Town stressed the role of states in promot-
ing and sustaining environmental and climate change education. In Wash-
ington, he noted, they have implemented state standards and programs
that support sustainability education--creating a position in the office of
the superintendent, an endorsement for teachers who specialize in envi-
ronmental sustainability, an environmental literacy plan, and classes that
prepare noncollege-bound students with job skills for the green economy.
He added that it will be very important to identify replicable and scalable
programs that have successful track records and export them to other
places around the country.
Communication
Participants also focused on communication issues. "We're overlook-
ing a lot of people who are just uneasy with being told `this is happen-
ing, so do something about it,'" noted Geringer. He suggested that one
reason why so many people are confused about climate change is that
they have not been taught how to reason and to ask questions. One par-
ticipant noted that although there are not really two sides to the issue of
climate change, scientists do have differences. For example, some focus
on data from the past 30 years, whereas others look back 50 years, and
these frames of reference may lead to moderately different assessments.
It is important to teach students that there are different ways to assess
and evaluate information that are equally consistent with the scientific
method, this person added. Doing so, several others observed, will also
be a way of "humanizing" scientists, helping people understand what it
is they do and how they reach their conclusions.
Several participants emphasized the importance of developing trust
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between the scientific community and the public, noting the need for
scientists to engage in more communication. Anderson elaborated on this
point, noting that scientists are often seen only as doing individual work
and have not been very successful in communicating that science is most
often done as a community. Other participants emphasized the impor-
tance of telling stories that build a narrative so that students can connect
with the issues. This can be accomplished through developing collabora-
tions with such disciplines as art and history and approaching climate
change through such issues as energy and health. As one participant
suggested, "give kids a sense of where they're coming from, where they
are, and where they can go and the real possibilities that apply out there."
Tamara Ledley emphasized the importance of creating bridges across
different levels of learning and highlighted the importance of teaching
students to communicate what they learn. She cited as an example a
program at Dartmouth College that integrates learning at the high school
and undergraduate levels and teaches students to bring what they learned
to the broader community. She added that by reaching out to a wider
audience, the program had the added benefit of making the information
relevant to students at a personal level.
Interdisciplinary Nature
Lynn Elfner (Ohio Academy of Science) observed that an important
goal is to prepare people to understand climate change issues so that
they will take action, and that is why an interdisciplinary and multidisci-
plinary approach is important. Although it is essential to master a single
discipline, he added, people need to understand how to use science for
solving problems and making good decisions about real-world issues.
Carol Brewer emphasized the need to "create partnerships to blaze the
transdisciplinary trail and also to broaden one's own knowledge to be
conversant beyond your individual expertise." She stressed that a starting
point could be that "in our own classrooms we have to be brave enough,
regardless of how our universities or schools are organized, to find a col-
league to teach with." In searching for those partners, she emphasized,
teachers can look to fill gaps in their own knowledge and improve their
teaching.
Jill Karsten (National Science Foundation) pointed out that the current
Climate Change Education Partnership Program at the National Science
Foundation is designed to foster the development of partnerships among
climate scientists, learning researchers, and education practitioners. The
projects funded through this program also reach out to stakeholders in the
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CLOSING DISCUSSION: MAJOR MESSAGES AND PARTING THOUGHTS 69
communities in an effort to align the needs and efforts of the broader com-
munity, with the goal of creating sustained engagement in the programs.
Koch sees the desired end point of climate change education as
addressing the issue of sustainability, which requires that people under-
stand the magnitude of the problem and also change behavior, but she
cautioned that most people may never understand the depth of the sci-
ence. She also sees the need to go beyond the physical, natural, and social
sciences to reach people in order to make progress on these issues.
FINAL THOUGHTS
James Mahoney provided closing comments and some thoughts for
the future. He pointed to two ideas that came into focus over the two-
day discussions: content and values. There was a lot of discussion of the
quantity and quality of information at different levels of education. His
experience working in the federal government on issues related to acid
rain, which, he noted, were similar in some cases to those associated with
climate change education, showed him that people working in different
areas of research often did not communicate with those outside their area
of expertise. He added that this resulted in a poor foundation to "carry
the problem through, end-to-end."
Mahoney pointed out that for those teaching climate science and
climate change, there is already a large body of work available that, by its
nature, is even-handed and transparent and is not focused on advocacy.
These resources are designed to give teachers the context in which to
teach climate issues, address uncertainties, identify good information, and
set appropriate frameworks. He stressed that although this information is
not the "last word," it is a very useful resource.
Mahoney closed with a consideration of how society values science:
"Do we value [science] as something which really is aimed to give us the
best possible answers, albeit uncertain? Do we value science as simply
a debating tool?" The issue, from his perspective, is to bring along stu-
dents, from middle school to college, to an understanding of science as a
tool that allows them to better understand earth systems. The concept of
uncertainty is at the center of the discussion, he added, but healthy skepti-
cism is not a reason for dismissing science. He emphasized that the goal
is to help students understand that scientists strive to get the science and
measurements right to the best of their ability, not because they expect to
establish the final word on a subject but as part of a process of expanding
understanding and reducing uncertainty.
Martin Storksdieck thanked the participants for the rich discussion
at the workshop. He emphasized that the goal of the workshop was not
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70 CLIMATE CHANGE EDUCATION: FORMAL SETTINGS, K-14
to come to conclusions, but to ask and explore complex questions that do
not have absolute or clear and easy solutions. Climate change and climate
change education raise many complex questions, he added, and the pre-
senters and participants generated a wealth of ideas and possible answers
that will be useful in a continued discussion on how to best address the
issue of climate change in formal education, K-14.
