5. What are your initial thoughts on teaching climate change?

initial thoughts

initial thoughts

by Carole Blake -
Number of replies: 2

1. I actually teach Earth Systems, a new course in BCPS that combined Earth Science and Environmental Science. I am an earth scientist, so I miss a lot of the Earth Science curriculum. I always tried to include climate change when I taught the climate unit. Now we have an entire unit devoted to climate change. We also discuss past climates in an early unit on co-evolution. 

2. The students seem to be understanding and connecting to the idea that the Earth is warming because of us. I thinks some of my students that live near the Bay will see the increase of erosion due to sea level rising. Many students don't seem to see the connections to themselves. I try to remind them that we are the ones that buy the products from the polluters, so we are responsible.

In reply to Carole Blake

Re: initial thoughts

by Elise Trelegan -

Carole, it seems like climate fits perfectly into what you're doing. I love that there is an entire course of Earth Systems... how cool. I'm really interested to know what your climate unit looks like now and what elements you feel more or less confident about. It's always a challenge to get our students to see themselves in the "problem" but maybe even more important to have them see themselves as the solution. The nice thing is that the MWEE framework really brings this full circle and allows students to come to their own realizations and develop their own ideas for actions. On a different note... I'm seeing a number of folks from BCPS and I'm excited about the possibility for scaling this topic/framework across grade-levels.

In reply to Carole Blake

Re: initial thoughts

by Anna Bella Sy -

Hi Carole I am glad that you will have one unit devoted to climate change. I agree in what you said that students have an idea that we are responsible for the warming of the earth but they don't see the connection to  themselves on how they were also responsible for polluting the earth. I also experienced the same thing with my students.