ABSTRACT
Socio-scientific issues (SSI), such as climate change, are complex, multidimensional, and ill-structured issues that are grounded in science and society. SSI teaching and learning is becoming a more prevalent classroom approach for promoting the general aim of scientific literacy while achieving specific science learning objectives. This chapter presents a model for SSI teaching and learning as applied to climate change. The model offers a general framework for teaching with issues, and a specific case of using climate change as the basis for an SSI unit is presented. The unit focuses on ecology, photosynthesis, carbon cycling, and modeling practices within the context of climate change. The model represents a synthesis of several classroom implementations of SSI and associated empirical investigations of design processes and student learning outcomes. The primary scientific ideas featured in the unit were ecological concepts and carbon cycling. Unit-specific learning objectives that specified disciplinary ideas, crosscutting concepts, and the practice of modeling.
