European Efforts in Earth Science and Climate Change Education

Abstract

Although many efforts have been undertaken to improve climate literacy, misconceptions about climate are still difficult to eliminate. This is, on the one hand, due to the complexity of the topic and to limits in school curricula or their day-to-day application, and, on the other hand, due to biases of discourse in media and politics. In this paper, we summarize opinions of teachers who judge in their majority the information presented to the pupils still as scattered and not comprehensive. We present an overview of primarily science-driven European projects in Earth science and climate change education, and we analyze the approaches and methodologies of these projects in the context of European curricula and experiences from former studies in this field. Although the availability of high-quality and impartial material has increased, its integration into classes is still a challenge for the future.

Keywords:

• climate literacy
• environmental education
• science curricula
• media influence
• learning methodologies