TEACHING WITH CLIMATE MODELS: A THREE-YEAR LONGITUDINAL STUDY

Over the past decade, ‘climate literacy’ has become increasingly important as an outcome of formal K-16 education. This focus was largely led by two significant standards documents -the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013) and the Essential Principles for Climate Literacy (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2009). Together, these standards have enhanced opportunities to develop climate education interventions that are grounded in authentic scientific modeling. Increasingly, K-12 teachers are seeking out and utilizing climate-focused curricula and resources to support students’ model-based learning about climate concepts. However, little is known regarding how teachers implement these materials in their classrooms and how their implementation changes over time. In this design-based, mixed-methods study, we investigate two secondary science teachers’ use of a research-based, NSF-supported curriculum grounded in a data-driven, global climate modeling tool to address the following research questions: (1) how do two secondary science teachers implement a model-based curriculum? and (2) how do their teachers’ implementation strategies change over the three-year study? With the use of a validated observation protocol for scientific modeling, both the written curriculum and the teachers’ observed implementation were quantitatively scored by our research team. In addition, qualitative analyses were conducted on teachers’ interviews and daily reflections based upon a priori codes reflected in the categories of the observation protocol. Results show that over the three-year period, there were no significant differences across years F(2, 230) = 1.24, p =0.292, nor were there significant interactions between the teachers and the year F(2, 230) = 1.57, p =0.211. However, significance did occur between teachers F(1, 230) = 9.93, p =0.002, specifically in the second year of the project. To ensure the most equitable outcome for students, it is critical to understand teachers’ use of curriculum materials and how that alter these materials over time.