AGU Chapman Conference on Communicating Climate Science: A Historic Look to the Future
08 June 2013 — 13 June 2013, Granby, CO, USA
Presenter: Keah Schuenemann
Tuesday, June 11, 2013, 9:15 a.m. - 9:30 a.m.
Session: Climate Change in the Classroom
Abstract Title: Using Student Generated Blogs to Create a Global Perspective on Climate Change
This presentation investigates the ways that students' climate change understanding evolves during climate change courses. Knowing students' ideas and where they come from helps climate change communicators see how students incorporate current scientific content into their preexisting ideas. Stakeholders can tailor communication to addresses knowledge gaps identified by this research. This research incorporates a conceptual change perspective that people construct knowledge based on prior ideas, which can develop from experiences starting at a young age. Influences include everyday experience with the world, and information gathered from parents, friends, the media, and at school. A person's ideas can evolve throughout their lifetime, including college. This research examines climate change ideas through eight case studies of students enrolled in climate change courses; five non-science majors from a large western university and three Earth Science majors from a mid-sized northeastern university. Both groups had alternative ideas about climate change. Throughout the semester, some students struggled to understand that climate change can be both naturally- and anthropogenically-caused. Some students thought that the ozone hole causes global warming, while others thought the Earth is headed towards another ice age as a result of humans "accelerating" natural climate change. Throughout the semester, students' ideas changed, but their ideas were not always consistent with that taught by their professors. For example, three students developed definitions of "climate change" that were different than scientific definitions. Two students had definitions of "climate change" that involved only natural climate change, reserving the anthropogenic component for the term "global warming." One student conflated the definition of climate change with other environmental issues. Understanding these inconsistencies will allow the scientific community to address differences and improve student and public perception of the meaning of "climate change." These findings suggest that stakeholders should develop and communicate consistent definitions of the terms "climate change" and "global warming." Stakeholders should also expect conceptual change to take place gradually as people struggle with new ideas and incorporate them into their prior conceptions. Finally, "misconceptions" can be viewed as a starting point from which people construct knowledge with the intention of eventually reaching expert-like thinking.
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