INTEGRATING CLIMATE CHANGE WITH THE CROSSCUTTING CONCEPTS IN THE FRAMEWORK FOR K-12 SCIENCE EDUCATION

The Framework for K-12 Science Education (NRC, 2012) offers a bold, research-based, consensus vision for science literacy and instruction. Emerging K-12 academic science standards including the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) as well as state standards in SC, AL, and others non-NGSS states, follow the framework to a remarkable degree. The framework is also a golden opportunity for informal educators who can use it to appropriately match audiences, content, techniques, and experiences for K-12 fieldtrips as well as adult visitors and staff.

The framework proposes that standards, curricula, and lessons be structured around three equally weighted dimensions, including Disciplinary Core Ideas (topics), Science and Engineering Practices (methods), and crosscutting concepts, which are broad paradigms for framing questions and analyses. In no particular order, the crosscutting concepts include patterns; cause and effect; scale, proportion, and quantity; systems and system models; energy and matter; structure and function; and stability and change.

Realizing the framework vision and implementing the derivative standards requires significant professional development for in-service teachers, pre-service teachers, and informal educators to re-frame their understandings of science literacy. This is especially true in the case of crosscutting concepts, which were not always evenly weighted formally and evenly with the other two dimensions. This makes relevant examples of the application of crosscutting concepts critical. Climate change provides a great opportunity to do this, however, because it is broadly relevant for teachers, students, and informal educators alike. Climate literacy (indeed science literacy in general) is also key to scientifically-informed civic engagement and public discourse. The purpose of this presentation is to work through the crosscutting concepts as lenses to map out appropriate questions, activities, and understandings of climate change.