CULTIVATING CLIMATE CHANGE LITERACY THROUGH SCAFFOLDED CRITIQUE AND EVALUATION (Invited Presentation)

The “information deficit” model of misunderstanding is essentially incorrect, particularly when learning and teaching about climate change. In fact, for climate literacy, students and the public must know (a) what scientists know and (b) how scientists know. Recent reform efforts capture these two components (i.e., the what and the how of scientific knowledge) in a 3-dimensional learning framework, intertwining scientific practices, crosscutting concepts, and disciplinary core ideas. In this framework, evaluation acts as a central hub linking the scientific activities of empirical inquiry and constructing explanations. Although the framework embeds reasoning throughout, evaluation as argument, critique, and analysis is central to developing peoples’ scientific thinking and scientifically accurate knowledge. However, such thinking and deep understanding are difficult for students to learn, teachers to teach, and scientists to communicate.

My research over the past decade suggests that individuals should scientifically evaluate connections between evidence and explanations about climate change—where there is a large plausibility gap in what lay people and scientists find plausible—to develop climate literacy. Although scientific explanations undergo certain evaluative processes that increase their perceived truthfulness, scientists and teachers should not assume that students and the public fully understand these processes and render the same judgments as the scientific community. Rather, for a deep understanding of climate science, educators and scientists should encourage students and the public to evaluate their own knowledge in light of scientific evidence by facilitating collaborative critique during the learning process. This presentation will highlight several research studies supporting these assertions and suggest meaningful ways for scientists and teachers to scaffold the process of evaluation and reasoned judgments as an essential element of scientific thinking about and understanding of climate change.

This research has been supported, in part, by NSF under Grant Nos. DRL-1316057 and DRL-1721041. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the NSF’s views.