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Developing Science Standards in a Time of Climate Change
2011 NARST presentation
Written by: Andy Anderson (Michigan State University)
Culturally relevant ecology, learning progressions and environmental literacy
Long Term Ecological Research Math Science Partnership
April 2, 2011
Disclaimer: This research is supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation: Targeted
Partnership: Culturally relevant ecology, learning progressions and environmental literacy (NSF0832173). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material
are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science
Foundation.
Developing Science Standards in a Time of
Climate Change
Comments for the Symposium: Exploration and Critique of
the NRC’s New Conceptual Framework for Science
Annual meeting of the National Association for Research in
Science Teaching
Charles W. Anderson, Michigan State University
April 2, 2011
My Past Positions about Specific
Content in Standards
• Advocate for depth over depth
• Advocate for scientific or developmentally
fundamental knowledge and practice
• Avoid strong positions about what content
is important
BUT
This. Time. Is. Different.
This content is way more important than the
rest of the framework
Human activities are constrained by and, in turn, affect all
other processes at Earth’s surface. (Human Interactions with
Earth)
How do humans affect the Earth, and how do Earth’s changes
affect humans?
How do natural hazards affect humans? (Natural Hazards)
How do humans depend upon Earth’s materials? (Natural Resources)
How do humans change the Earth? (Human Impacts on the Earth)
How will global climate change affect humans? (Global Climate Change)
The Choices We Face with
Respect to Climate Change
We basically have three choices: mitigation,
adaptation, and suffering. We’re already
doing some of each and will do more of all
three. The question is what the mix will be.
The more mitigation we do, the less
adaptation will be required, and the less
suffering there will be.
John Holdren, science advisor to Barack
Obama
Our Current Choices
• We are now choosing suffering, but
not our own suffering:
–Our children’s suffering
–Suffering of people with fewer
resources for adaptation
Forms that Suffering Takes
• Genocide (Rwanda, Darfur)
• Natural disasters (European heat wave,
Russian heat wave, Australian drought and
floods, Pakistan floods)
• The headlines may not say “climate change”
• Suffering starts with most vulnerable people,
but they will find ways to export their suffering
just as now export goods and services to
support our lifestyles
Responding to Acute and Longterm Existential Threats
• In the past we have responded to immediate
existential threats (e.g., Nazi Germany) by
pulling together to defeat a common enemy
• We now face a slower but more severe
existential threat
– It takes decades to change our economy
– It takes decades more for the climate
system to respond
• A great challenge for education is figuring out
how to recognize the threat and “stay the
course” on the time scales that will be
needed.
Three Dimensions of Framework
• Cross-cutting concepts
• Scientific and engineering practices
• Core disciplinary ideas
• What should national standards
look like if we focus on climate
change?
The Keeling Curve as an Example
Core Disciplinary Ideas
• Understanding carbon cycling—the causes of
the yearly cycle and long-term trends in the
Keeling curve—requires people to trace matter
and energy through Earth systems at multiple
scales in space and time.
• Understanding the effects of changes in
atmospheric composition on climate, hydrology,
and living systems requires study of core
concepts in life, Earth, and physical sciences
• Understanding the costs and benefits of current
technologies, as well as the costs and benefits
of strategies for mitigation and adaptation,
requires careful analysis of technological
systems
These Ideas Are:
• More important than Newton’s laws
• More important than astronomy
• More important than our evolutionary past
Three Dimensions of Framework
• Cross-cutting concepts
• Scientific and engineering practices
• Core disciplinary ideas
• What should national standards
look like if we focus on climate
change?
Can we TRUST what
scientists say about the
Keeling Curve and its
implications?
Scientific Inquiry and Argument
• Uncertainty as a core issue for scientific
inquiry (Metz, 2004)
• Scientific position:
– Our knowledge of past, present, and future is
inevitably uncertain
– BUT we can reduce uncertainty, by:
• Giving authority to arguments from evidence rather
than individual people
• Commitment to rigor in research methods
• Collective validation through consensus of
scientific communities (peer review)
• Identifying sources for knowledge claims
Values Underlying Scientific Inquiry
• These are the core values of scientific
communities:
• Giving authority to arguments from evidence rather
than individual people
• Commitment to rigor in research methods
• Collective validation through consensus of
scientific communities
• Identifying sources for knowledge claims
• Reasons scientists adhere to these values
• Scientific training
• Cheating will almost certainly be caught
Scientific Values and Political
Discourse
• With one exception, none of the Republicans
running for the Senate — including the 20 or so
with a serious chance of winning — accept the
scientific consensus that humans are largely
responsible for global warming. (NY Times,
10/17/10)
• "Michael Steel, a spokesman for Representative
John A. Boehner of Ohio, who will become
speaker in January, said, “The Select Committee
on Global Warming was created by Democrats
simply to provide political cover to pass their jobkilling national energy tax.” (NY Times, 12/2/10)
A Message from Burt S.
Dr. Anderson,
While increasing understanding of the nature of conservation of matter
is not a bad thing, linking it to "climate change" is suspect.
There has been no global warming since 1998 from what I'm reading.
Of course the climate is changing. It always has. Observable climate
change is scientific. To state that humans are responsible for most of it
is speculation and outside the realm of observable science.
The component of carbon dioxide emitted into the air by human activity
is very small (3%?) with water in the air accounting for 90% of the
greenhouse effect. Half the carbon dioxide injected into the air by
human activity is immediately absorbed by nature. After the math is
done, the human component of the increase in carbon dioxide into the
atmosphere each year is on the order of .015%.
The global warming issue (renamed climate change since the globe
has temporarily quit warming) is more likely kept alive by the $4 billion
in tax dollars spent this year on global warming research. In my
humble opinion.........
Sincerely, Burt S----, BS/MA
What’s at Stake? Changes in Public Opinion
What causes climate change?
Human Activity
Natural
Geological
Causes
April, 2008
47%
34%
January, 2010
34%
47%
• Note the volatility of public opinion: Opinions
about the Earth’s climate change as fast as
opinions about the next election
• Many people decide who to trust without
being able to judge scientific quality of
arguments from evidence
Source: Newsweek, March 1, 2010
Possible Consequences
• Political discourse and personal decisions
can become dominated by different
subcultures each constructing their own
“reality”—Prius drivers, SUV drivers, etc.
• BUT we all live together on the same Earth
• In 50 years we will know for sure who is right
and who is wrong
• Our children will live with the consequences
What’s at Stake?
• As educators, we can give people the ability
to choose among mitigation, adaptation, and
suffering
• We owe it to our children to give them access
to the knowledge and values needed for
informed choices about climate change:
– Help students understand the consequences of
our policies and actions
– Help students understand the purposes and
values of scientific inquiry
• This is our most important obligation as we
develop new national standards