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Climate Science Investigations (CSI): An Online Series of Modules that Teach Students to Use Evidence-Based Scientific Argumentation to Address Climate Skeptics Claims
| Julie Lambert Florida Atlantic University |
Climate Science Investigations (CSI) is an online, interactive series of modules and teaching resources that enable secondary and undergraduate students to analyze and use NASA and NOAA data to address the public's questions and commonly held misconceptions about climate change. The curriculum development was funded through the NASA Innovations in Climate Education (NICE) program and is being piloted with high school and undergraduate students throughout south Florida and Ventura County, California.
The instructional approach is to use the questions about climate change, and the arguments that underlie them, as a basis for teaching the practices of science and the critical thinking skills inherent in these processes. The CSI modules are sequenced so that students progressively discover the evidence of climate change and human involvement. They examine data and are guided to formulate reasonable explanations about the causes and impacts of climate change as they move through the modules. In the first module, students are introduced to climate science inquiry and the practices and nature of science and skepticism. In the second module, students examine extreme weather events and review the difference between weather and climate. Students examine the concept of balancing Earth's energy budget, a fundamental concept to understanding climate science, in the third module; and in the fourth module, they investigate the temporal and regional temperature data to examine the question of whether Earth is warming, and if so, how rapidly. In the fifth module, students compare natural and human causes of climate change and discover that the observations can only be explained when both are included in the climate models. In the sixth module, students investigate the observed and projected impacts of climate change. In the seventh module, solutions for adaption and mitigation are explored, and finally, as a culminating module, students practice addressing climate skeptics claims.