Climate Science: Socioscientific Issues in the STEM Classroom

Catalog description

Socioscientific issues are important avenues through which to teach scientific literacy and to create the next generation of critical thinkers and sustainable solution engineers. Anthropogenic climate change is one of the most complex and critical issues the global community faces today. Understanding climate change and the scientific, social, and economic ramifications is crucial for science pedagogues. This course examines the ideas of socioscientific issues and critical thinking in science education and how they can be taught through NGSS-aligned global change pedagogies that highlight climate and energy literacy. Pedagogues will learn to utilize authentic data resources that elucidate the story of our changing climate and think critically about how to implement data into their teaching. The philosophical, ethical, and scientific basis of these problems and their solutions will be discussed.