Improving Climate Literacy With Project-Based Modules Rich in Educational Rigor and Relevance

ABSTRACT

Project-based climate change instructional modules were developed and used in middle and high school classrooms. The modules were created to develop higher-order thinking skills with real-world data and models describing climate systems and approaches to mitigate or adapt to changes. The objective of this paper is to identify the relationships between specific attributes of the project-based climate modules used in classrooms and resulting gains in middle and high school students' climate literacy. Modules were assessed to define the level of rigor and relevance associated with the learning activities. A climate literacy questionnaire that included cognitive, affective (including self-efficacy), and behavioral items was administered to students before and after the modules were taught. Overall, students made modest but statistically significant gains on the cognitive (p ≪ 0.001) and the affective (p < 0.01) climate literacy subscales. Results of the fixed effects analysis of covariance showed a significant difference among classrooms on students' cognitive (p < 0.001), behavioral (p = 0.001), and self-efficacy (p = 0.015) performance; both the teacher and the specific content taught varied among classrooms. Two specific teachers and the modules they developed and taught were defined as exemplars based on the significant climate literacy gains made by their students. Both of these modules, one middle school level and one high school level, used role-play projects that expected students to acquire and analyze historical temperature data and predictions of the future climate at various locations around the world. Middle school students played the role of an individual living in a different country and culture, while the high school students each acted as a science adviser to a political delegate attending a world climate conference. Students at both levels made highly significant gains in the cognitive subscale, and the middle school students improved their literacy in the affective, self-efficacy, and behavioral subscales. The breadth of climate issues covered and the depth of analysis of real-world data and situations were identified as critical attributes of these particular modules that led to improved climate literacy.

Key words::

• climate change
• project-based learning
• rigor and relevance
• climate literacy
• middle school
• high school

Acknowledgment

This research was supported by the NICE program (NNX10AB57A). The findings and opinions presented here do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the funding agency.

Notes

¹  Values for Cronbach's alpha can be as low as 0.70 for a set of items in social science scales (Benson and Clark, 1982) and as low as 0.60 for scales used in educational assessment (Linn and Gronlund, 2000; Qaqish, 2006).

²  Normalized gains were calculated as the ratio of the absolute gain (post- minus prequestionnaire score) to the maximum possible gain (maximum subscale score to prequestionnaire score).

³  Differences were evaluated by “teacher” to capture general differences in the educational experiences of students in each of the 12 teachers' classrooms, including the nature of the climate change module or modules taught, as well as teachers' individual pedagogical style. Individual group sizes for each teacher ranged from one small class of 15 to multiple sections that totaled upward of 150 students.

⁴ The primary characteristic students identified is that GHGs can absorb energy at certain wavelengths in the atmosphere.