ABSTRACT
Climate literacy entails students’ understanding of the conceptual underpinnings of global climate change (GCC) and the practices of climate scientists. The latter foregrounds understanding how climate scientists use models to study GCC. Since Earth’s climate and scientific modeling are both emphasized in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013), developing pedagogical and curricular resources specific to model-based reasoning about Earth’s climate is critical. The NSF-funded project – High School Students’ Climate Literacy through Epistemology of Scientific Modeling (CliMES; Bhattacharya et al., 2018) – involves the development, implementation, study, and refinement of a four-week, high school climate science module designed around a computer-based, data-driven, global climate model: EzGCM (Easy Global Climate Modeling). Using design-based empirical research (Collins et al., 2004), the project involves development of a new EzGCM-based curriculum module and its iterative refinement over multiple years. In this chapter, we draw on diverse perspectives of our project partners to describe best practices, challenges, and opportunities for promoting climate education in secondary science (formal) classroom settings. In doing so, we emphasize collaborative partnership, aligning priorities of stakeholders, curriculum development and implementation, empirical study of teaching and learning, teacher professional development, and the project’s long-term sustainability.
