DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION OF AN INQUIRY-BASED UNIT FOR TEACHING ABOUT PALEOCLIMATE AND CLIMATE CHANGE

The goal of this action research study is to contribute a sequence of four lessons to GEOS 2900 (Exploring Earth Science: Geology) that follow the course philosophy, are effective at improving students’ understanding of climate change, and meet the state requirements for elementary teacher preparation. Because our students are pre-service teachers we focus on reducing misconceptions so that incorrect ideas are not passed on their elementary students.

This was accomplished by developing four lessons that follow the GEOS 2900 course philosophy of student-driven learning through constructivism and guided-inquiry. The four lessons are the result of a combination of creating new lessons and modifying existing ones. The first lesson uses a jigsaw teaching approach in which the students create a model of the carbon cycle. In the second lesson students design an experiment to test the effect of carbon dioxide on atmospheric temperature and use a computer animation to further investigate the greenhouse effect. In the third lesson, the students use Google Earth to determine 50-year temperature averages for various cities across the globe. In the fourth lesson the students examine Vostok ice core data to reconstruct a 300,000 year climate record and its relationship to Milankovitch cycles. Although these lessons are designed for and tested in a course for future elementary teachers, they could be adapted to other classes as well (e.g. high school, college non-majors earth science courses).

The effectiveness of the four lessons is determined in three ways: 1) by the student knowledge gains from pre- and post- tests, 2) by assessing the students’ confidence with the content material through feedback surveys, and 3) by classroom observations to monitor lesson implementation. Initial implementation of the lessons in the spring 2012 revealed that students were able to identify natural mechanisms that cause climate to change, distinguish between weather and climate, and identify greenhouse gases as contributing to global warming. However, they struggled with interpreting graphs and identifying how natural processes affect the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. These results guide changes for future lesson implementation to complete the action research study.