‘It’s a gassy world’: starting with students’ wondering questions to inform climate change education

Abstract

There is extensive evidence showing that the climate system is warming and human behavior is linked to the change. Despite increasing attempts to integrate climate change into school curricula, teachers have challenges in preparing and implementing climate change lessons. The study aims to look at (a) the kinds of wondering questions middle school students construct after they are engaged in a climate change activity called ‘It’s a Gassy World’ and (b) what teachers highlight in their reflections on these questions to improve their teaching. In this multi-case explorative study, the data comes from student artifacts, teachers’ written reflections, and semi-structured conversational interviews with teachers. A constant-comparative analysis of students’ wondering questions (N = 165) showed that the nature of the questions varies. These were grouped under three different categories: direct observation, interdisciplinary connections, and future projections questions. We then analyzed five teachers’ written reflections and interviews from a cultural historical activity theoretical perspective. This analysis revealed that teachers paid particular attention to certain tools (physical and conceptual), norms (epistemic and teaching), emotions, and division of labor routines in classrooms. We discuss how students’ wondering questions help teachers notice essential features of climate change learning such as spatiotemporal thinking.

Keywords:

• Climate change
• teacher education
• wondering questions
• emotional experience

Acknowledgements

Authors would like to thank Drs. Mary K. Stapleton and Jane Wolfon for desiging the data collection site and their help with collecting data.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Asli Sezen-Barrie, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Science and Engineering Education in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Maine. Her research explores how teachers and students make sense of epistemic practices of science and engineering through sociocultural methods of interactional ethnography and discourse analysis.

Elizabeth Hufnagel, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Science Education in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Maine. Her research explores the ways learners and teachers emotionally make sense of science and learning through discourse in a variety of science learning settings.

Anica Miller-Rushing, M.Ed., is currently a STEM Education Ph.D. candidate in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Maine. Anica’s research focuses on teacher agency and identity in order to support the potential of K-12 teachers of science to serve as autonomously-driven systems-level change agents..

Additional information

Funding

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant #1239758. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors

and do not necessarily react the views of the National Science Foundation.