CONSTRUCTING A CLIMATE CHANGE UNIT FOR HIGH SCHOOL BASED ON THE INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE (IPCC) FRAMEWORK

The NGSS have put Climate Change at the forefront of high school Earth science education. However, most Earth science textbooks and curriculum outlines simply imbed climate study into a weather unit. High school Earth science teachers should now consider the best way to organize the study of climate change into an independent unit. Here, I present an instructional method to organize a climate change unit that adheres to the NGSS as well as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). High school students become members of a mock IPCC as they learn about the 3 Working Groups of the IPCC and generate their own Assessment on Climate Change. By creating this unit, students (1) create a way to mentally organize new information on climate change, (2) form a conclusion about climate change based on a scientific framework, and (3) understand how science is developed, reviewed, and communicated.