The Teaching of Anthropogenic Climate Change and Earth Science via Technology-Enabled Inquiry Education

ABSTRACT

A gap has existed between the tools and processes of scientists working on anthropogenic global climate change (AGCC) and the technologies and curricula available to educators teaching the subject through student inquiry. Designing realistic scientific inquiry into AGCC poses a challenge because research on it relies on complex computer models, globally distributed data sets, and complex laboratory and data collection procedures. Here we examine efforts by the scientific community and educational researchers to design new curricula and technology that close this gap and impart robust AGCC and Earth Science understanding. We find technology-based teaching shows promise in promoting robust AGCC understandings if associated curricula address mitigating factors such as time constraints in incorporating technology and the need to support teachers implementing AGCC and Earth Science inquiry. We recommend the scientific community continue to collaborate with educational researchers to focus on developing those inquiry technologies and curricula that use realistic scientific processes from AGCC research and/or the methods for determining how human society should respond to global change.

Key words::

• technology
• anthropogenic climate change
• Earth Science
• inquiry

Notes

⁵ It is important to note MAGIC represents an energy-balance simulator that carries through calculations at the global-mean level using the same upwelling-diffusion, energy-balance climate model employed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In contrast, SCENGENN is an emulator that produces spatially detailed information on future changes in temperature, precipitation, and mean sea-level pressure using the IPCC's CMIP3/AR4 archive of GCMs. In computer science, emulations adhere to all the fixed rules of the system's behavior they are emulating, while simulations behave similar to a given system but may not obey all rules and may also be implemented in very different ways. Only research-grade GCMs like EdGCM simulate all of the interactions in between the atmosphere and ocean.