Randy, as some of my recent interactions here attest to and as we both
have personally experienced in churches the level of literacy
Christian lay people have with respect to the climate is very low. Our
members being professional scientists and technologists having gone
through the peer review process can wade through and often amplify the
arcane language of scientific journals. Our method of solving
controversy and communicating with our colleagues by adding more
"facts" does not work in this politically polarized age. One of the
downsides of the intense political controversy is that not only
climatology but science in general and individual scientists are
maligned. This latter effect is why I have waded into this area to
combat the cynicism driven by the disinformation of parties with an
economic self-interest to promote fear and obfuscation. As you well
know this goes all the way back to the 60s and 70s where these parties
were hired by the tobacco companies to prove in lawsuits there was no
"scientific consensus" about cigarettes causing cancer.
We need to be working with other professional societies such as the
American Association for the Advancement of Science's Project 2061 and
the American Geophysical Union, one of the largest earth science
organizations. Being both a professional society and a Christian one
we are in a unique place to bridge the gap amongst an audience that
desperately needs it. Speaking of the AGU they had some very helpful
seminars on this topic at their meeting in the Fall of 2007.
Improving the climate literary of students, educators and the public -
The Climate Literacy Initiative
AU: * Dupigny-Giroux, L L
EM: ldupigny@uvm.edu
AF: University of Vermont, Department of Geography 200 Old Mill
Building 94 University Place, Burlington, VT 05405-0114, United States
AB: The Climate Literacy Initiative of the Association of American
Geographers (AAG) was largely born out of the growing realization of
the misconceptions held by university students about the atmosphere,
weather, climate and increasingly, climate variability and change. One
way to quantify students' perceptions and scientific understanding
about a topic like global warming, was via the reflection rubric
common to service-learning pedagogy. This revealed the dichotomy that
students, and society in general, face between a research-style
presentation of scientific results versus an opinion article that
might appear in a local news outlet. These reflections also revealed
the underlying gaps in student knowledge about basic atmospheric
dynamics and the complexities of the linkages across the air-land-
ocean interface. In order to address these knowledge gaps, climate
pedagogy and resources are critical. A weather and climate needs
assessment of some Vermont K-8 teachers revealed that their primary
interests revolved around curriculum development and enhancement;
experimental learning for their students; innovative activities using
existing Internet-based resources and; professional development. This
presentation will highlights the activities of the Climate Literacy
Initiative, including its collaboration with the ESPERE group in
Germany and the Climate Change Education Working group, sponsored by
the U.S. Climate Change Science Program.
--- One of the things we've both noticed, namely, that controversy about origins and climate change go hand in glove. This has not gone unnoticed by the science education community in this case CIRES which is in my back yard. : Teaching about climate change: lessons from evolution education AU: * Wise, S B EM: sarah.wise@colorado.edu AF: Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), Campus Box 449 U. of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, AB: Climate change and evolution share the dubious distinction of being widely accepted by scientists, but hotly debated by the public. They are also marked by communication pitfalls, belief-based misconceptions, the influence of denial machines, and the risk of educator embroilment in controversy. Evolution educators have developed a number of successful strategies for overcoming these challenges, which may prove useful for climate change educators. The session will conclude with a discussion of teacher professional development opportunities which address the challenges presented by publically controversial science topics. UR: http://cires.colorado.edu/education/k12/ -- CIRES is a treasure trove of materials both for the science educator and for those of us with outreach to churches. For example: http://cires.colorado.edu/education/k12/ClimateLiteracyP2P.pdf Sarah Wise is doing research on what works when teaching about controversial issues in science. Any science educators out there could help her out by taking her survey here: http://cires.colorado.edu/education/k12/people/wise/ Finally there are a number of outreach activities done by NOAA and other federal agencies. How do we create a climate literate society? A review of Climate Literacy essential principles and fundamental concepts that ensure climate literate citizens and students AU: * Niepold, F EM: frank.niepold@noaa.gov AF: NOAA Climate Program Office National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 1315 East West Highway, SSMC III, Rm. 12727, Silver Spring, MD 20910, United States AB: Through a partnership between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and AAAS Project 2061 we have collaborated to define climate literacy and develop weather and climate benchmarks for science literacy. The newly developed and revised national weather and climate science education standards were published in March of 2007 in the AAAS Project 2061 Atlas for Science Literacy volume II. This session will present the results of these projects as well as the publication of "An Abbreviated Guide for Teaching Climate Change." The Climate Literacy effort is working in parallel with the Ocean Literacy effort and has developed a Framework for Climate Literacy using the AAAS Project 2061 Atlas of Science. On April 10 - 12, 2007, AAAS and NOAA brought together 25 individuals for a workshop. They represented federal science agencies, formal and informal educators, non- governmental organizations, and other institutions involved with climate research, education, and outreach to build on the science education benchmarks. This effort resulted in a draft framework that will be used to engage the broad community to develop a robust conceptual framework that addresses the essential principles and fundamental concepts that climate literate citizens and students should know. That document has been reviewed and commented on during several rounds and will be available during the conference. UR: http://www.climate.noaa.gov/education/ --- Also check out www.globalchange.gov. There you can find the recent report on what global warming is doing in various regions of the U.S.: http://downloads.globalchange.gov/usimpacts/pdfs/climate-impacts-report.pdf and their Climate Literacy brochure: http://downloads.climatescience.gov/Literacy/Climate%20Literacy%20Booklet%20Hi-Res.pdf Here's a sample: HOW DO WE KNOW WHAT IS SCIENTIFICALLY CORRECT? The Peer Review Process Science is an on-going process of making observations and using evidence to test hypotheses. As new ideas are developed and new data are obtained, oftentimes enabled by new technologies, our understanding evolves. The scientific community uses a highly formalized version of peer review to validate research results and our understanding of their significance. Researchers describe their experiments, results, and interpretations in scientific manuscripts and submit them to a scientific journal that specializes in their field of science. Scientists who are experts in that field serve as “referees” for the journal: they read the manuscript carefully to judge the reliability of the research design and check that the interpretations are supported by the data. Based on the reviews, journal editors may accept or reject manuscripts or ask the authors to make revisions if the study has insufficient data or unsound interpretations. Through this process, only those concepts that have been described through well-documented research and subjected to the scrutiny of other experts in the field become published papers in science journals and accepted as current science knowledge. Although peer review does not guarantee that any particular published result is valid, it does provide a high assurance that the work has been carefully vetted for accuracy by informed experts prior to publication. The overwhelming majority of peer-reviewed papers about global climate change acknowledge that human acontributing factors. --- I believe the ASA is well placed to be a helpful agent to work with Christians to promote climate literacy and science literacy in general as the AAAS Project 2061 said: “Science, mathematics, and technology have a profound impact on our individual lives and our culture. They play a role in almost all human endeavors, and they affect how we relate to one another and the world around us. . . . Science Literacy enables us to make sense of real- world phenomena, informs our personal and social decisions, and serves as a foundation for a lifetime of learning.” Rich Blinne Member ASA To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with "unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.Received on Tue Aug 25 09:51:20 2009
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