CLIMATE CHANGE LEARNING ACTIVITY TO INCREASE SCIENCE LITERACY AND UNDERSTANDING OF CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS

A climate change jigsaw was developed for an introductory geology class. The intent of the jigsaw was to create peer-to-peer interactions to increase scientific literacy and learning about climate change impacts. The preliminary jigsaw was given to two classes in the spring of 2015 (n=99 students). While the interactions were not monitored during this activity, coding of short answers (n=257) using Montangero’s (1996) diachronic thinking method was used to determine cognitive processes (transformational, temporal organization and interstage linkage). Scientific literacy was assessed with multiple choice (n=165) and short answer questions that required students to read, quantify and synthesize X-Y graphs, maps, legends and captions. Scientific literacy was coded based on the students use of quantifiable data from the figures (i.e. #’s, %’s or dates) and if they referred to figure numbers when synthesizing data. Diachronic thinking results of short answers indicated that 40% of answers activated transformational thinking, 11% activated temporal organization and 42% activated interstage linkage. Scientific literacy results for short answers had 64% of students referring to a specific figure but only 23% referred to quantitative data from the figures and even less (14%) used dates to make their arguments. Implications from these results indicate that the jigsaw activity had 93% of the students understanding that the climate has varied over time (transformational) but only 42% understood that anthropogenic CO₂ has caused negative impacts to different geographical regions (interstage linkage). In addition, a majority of students did not use quantitative values from figures in short answers indicating scientific literacy did not see significant gains. Future changes to the jigsaw will require students to quantify variability and changes in trends as well as identify timing of events in hopes of having greater improvements in learning about climate change.