Facts about climate change are often ineffective in impacting people's climate change beliefs or environmentally related behaviors. Multiple theories of environmental behavior use norms to foster behavior change. Science fiction writers may also attempt to sway individuals' perceptions of climate change through imaginings of a future affected by…

An interdisciplinary Pop-Up Learning Community (PLC) allowed students from various disciplines with different levels of content knowledge to discuss their perspectives on and beliefs about climate change. The impact of this event on students' climate change beliefs was gauged by a survey from the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication. This…

Helping students to understand complex processes is one of the core challenges in teaching biology courses. Concept mapping is a flexible pedagogical method that enables students to learn the complexities of a given subject while at the same time being versatile enough that instructors can easily pivot between instructional modalities and/or…

One of the major challenges of teaching science has been engaging students in discussions of concepts due to lack of perceived relevancy of topics to students' individual goals and societal issues. Science has been viewed as a set of abstract topics disconnected from the real world. To increase student motivation, self-efficacy, and interest in…

Understanding data analysis and interpreting data are key components of teaching interdisciplinary undergraduate students. We detail a semester-long research project that introduces students to long-term data sets, incorporates the use of widely available statistical analysis, and underscores an inquiry-based method of teaching climate change. Our…

Individuals use information selectively, in ways that support group beliefs or one's psychological needs--this is motivated reasoning. Motivated reasoning is revealed in correlations between (1) opinions/knowledge and (2) individual cognitive preferences, such as need for closure, belief in a just world, and authoritarianism. We ask whether…

In this study, we analyzed the literature on teaching or learning on a topic in Earth science, environmental science, or climate change between 1995 and 2017. We investigated the length of the intervention, intervention setting and instructional level, instructional purpose, pedagogical framing and pedagogical methods (including what materials and…

Sessions of our laboratory-based physics course have been "meeting" synchronously online instead of on campus due to the pandemic. Shifting to remote instruction prompted us to create online versions of the course. In the unit on global climate change, for example, we continued engaging students in documenting their initial and evolving…

Science faculty are being asked to create active learning experiences that engage students in core concepts and science practices. This article describes an approach to developing active learning lessons from authentic science research projects using the 5E lesson format. Included is a description of the 5Es and a template for creating a 5E…

A climate-literate population, capable of making informed decisions related to climate change, is of critical importance as society faces ever-increasing global temperatures and changes in the climate system. This project evaluates the effectiveness of a novel instructional approach that incorporates climate change science into a first-year…

To develop a context for program-level design decisions pertaining to anthropogenic climate change, the authors studied the prevalence of courses focused on human-induced climate change in undergraduate marine science and environmental science degree programs in the United States. Of the 86 institutions and 125 programs the authors examined, 37%…

What responsibility do science teacher educators have for engaging students in learning about global climate change in courses? How can the topic of global climate change be added to an already packed course curriculum? The authors have begun assembling instructional resources and learning ways others have incorporated global climate change in…

The study described in this article is part of the Maryland and Delaware Climate Change Education Assessment and Research (MADE CLEAR) project, which aims to improve climate literacy in the K-16 population through systemic, sustainable change in teacher preparation. The authors surveyed faculty members at four higher education institutions to…

This article describes engaging students in two simple observations to address the concepts of changes of states, heat, temperature, and molecular potential and kinetic energy. It also discusses how these concepts can enable students to further explore and understand interesting and significant phenomena and research in multiple areas of science.…

Certain scientific conclusions are controversial, in that they are rejected by a substantial proportion of nonscientists despite an overwhelming scientific consensus. Science educators are motivated to help students understand the evidence behind the scientific consensus on these matters and to move students' views into alignment with those held…