March 25, 2009

Professors develop climate and climate change curriculum

The Activities for Conceptualizing Climate and Climate Change program was created through a grant from the National Science Foundation's Geoscience Education program. Dan Shepardson, a professor of curriculum and instruction and earth and atmospheric sciences, is the principal investigator. Dev Niyogi, an assistant professor of agronomy and earth and atmospheric sciences, is a co-principal investigator.

The program was unveiled earlier this month at the annual Hoosier Association of Science Teachers conference in Indianapolis. The activities can be accessed at the Indiana State Climate Office at https://iclimate.org/ccc. It can be used by teachers at no cost, Shepardson said.

"Teaching and learning about climate and climate change is conceptually challenging," Shepardson said. "Although students can collect local weather data and relate this data to local climate, they cannot monitor climate change due to time and scale issues. In order to learn about climate change it is necessary for students to interpret, analyze, explain and evaluate historical data and model-based data projections."

The activities are designed to supplement the existing junior and senior high school science curriculum and are consistent with national science education standards, Shepardson said. The 17 activities are clustered around four modules: fossil fuels and greenhouse gases, climate and severe/extreme weather, climate change and ecological impacts, and natural processes.

Teachers involved in the development and field testing of the activities were: David Burch of Eastern Greene Jr.-Sr. High School, Ted Leuenberger of Benton Central Jr.-Sr. High School, and Mark Koschmann of St. John’s Lutheran School. Graduate students Umarporn Charusombat, from the earth and atmospheric sciences department, and Soyoung Choi, from the curriculum and instruction department, assisted in the project’s research and Web site design. Mary Maxine Browne from the Indiana State Climate Office served as a project editor.

The Center for Research and Engagement in Science and Mathematics Education and the Discovery Park Center for the Environment provided additional funding.

Writer: Clyde Hughes, (765) 494-2073, jchughes@purdue.edu

Source: Dan Shepardson, (765) 494-5284, dshep@purdue.edu

Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu

To the News Service home page