The big news in the world of climate change education this week has been the National Center for Science Education's new climate change education initiative. 

"Long respected for its work in defending and supporting the teaching of evolution in the public schools...NCSE launched this new initiative to defend and support the teaching of climate change."

When asked why NCSE decided to take on climate change, Executive Director Eugenie Scott responded;

"We have been receiving more and more reports of teachers being pressured against teaching climate change, much as they are pressured against teaching evolution. Right now the evidence is anecdotal but we have heard enough to suggest that it is a problem."
Source

Read more coverage on the initiative below and make sure you check out their new webpage  for tips, tools and other information!

Read More:
Evolution advocate turns to climate
http://www.nature.com/news/evolution-advocate-turns-to-climate-1.9811

Climate change skepticism seeps into science classrooms
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-climate-change-school-20120116,0,2808837.story

Climate in Classrooms
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/18/climate-in-classrooms/

Climate Change Causes Heated Battles For Science Teachers
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/18/climate-change-skeptics-science-teachers_n_1214049.html

National Center For Science Education Launches Fight Against Climate Change Denial In Schools
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2012/01/18/405831/national-center-for-science-education-climate-change-denial-in-schools/?mobile=nc

 

Listen:
New Initiative to Promote Climate Change in the Classroom
http://www.thetakeaway.org/2012/jan/18/climate-change-classroom/

A Second Science Front: Evolution Champions Rise to Climate Science Defense
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=a-second-science-front-evolution-ch-12-01-16

Point of Inquiry:  Eugenie Scott - Defending Climate Education
http://www.pointofinquiry.org/eugenie_scott_defending_climate_education/

 It is hard to believe that November is already here!  We have been busy posting the online classroom submissions and doing a few school visits with Will.  Read more about the visits here.  We hope to start hearing about any projects that you have worked on with your students in the next few months.

Will Steger will be speaking at two public forums in Princeton and Grand Rapids, Minnesota in December.  The focus will be clean air, climate and health.  More information

Congratulations to the Heritage E-STEM school for receiving a Parks Climate Challenge grant to conduct water quality testing on a local water source, identify the problems and design a plan for improvement.  We hope to see more grant proposals from the Parks Climate schools soon!

As always, PLEASE feel free to contact us with any questions or feedback, but also to share what you are up to!  We love seeing reports, journal entries, posters, movies and photos and will be sure to feature them in upcoming newsletters and our blog.

Happy Thanksgiving!
Kristen Poppleton
Ann Benson

Featured Public Service Announcement Video from Wellstone Elementary

 

In the News
"Challenges to climate change education are common in the classroom, according to a poll of science educators conducted by the National Science Teachers Association. Although 60% of respondents to the on-line poll reported that they were not concerned about how climate change is taught in their school, 82% reported having faced skepticism about climate change and climate change education from students, 54% reported having faced such skepticism from parents, and 26% reported having faced such skepticism from administrators."  Read more

This recent article posted to SEEK gives some great ideas for ways to find support for getting kids outside.  

Project Funding Opportunities
Lexus Eco Challenge: Focus on Air/Climate

Captain Planet Foundation

America's Home Energy Challenge

SEED Grants for Energy Efficiency Projects

Compost Awareness Week Poster Contest

Disney Planet Challenge

Scholarships for Visitng Audubon Center for the Northwoods

Professional Development Opportunities
NOAA's Teacher at Sea Program

Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowships

As those of us in Northern regions bid farewell to migratory species for the winter, and those of you in Southern regions are welcoming our summer wildlife, the topic of migration seemed like pertinent topic to write on today.  Climate change is clearly impacting migratory species.  Robins are being seen in the Arctic regions, and some butterfly species are emerging weeks earlier. However, while birds and butterflies are generally what comes to mind when we think about the affect of climate change on migration, another population often forgotten is humans. 
In 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) noted that the greatest single impact of climate change could be on human migration—with millions of people displaced by shoreline erosion, coastal flooding and agricultural disruption.  (Migration and Climate Change)

The impact of climate change on human populations provides us as educators with the opportunity to include discussions of environmental justice and ethics in our classroom.  What constitutes right and wrong?  How do our actions affect people living on the other side of the world and what is our responsibility?  Bring the discussion to a local level.  What populations in our own community are disproportionately impacted by climate change's impacts?  Why and what can or should we do?

(Here comes the flood Janos Bogardi & Koko Warner, Nature Reports Climate Change (2009) Published online: 11 December 2008)

Recent funding from the Minnesota Historical Society has enabled us to begin organizing Will's vast archives. This project will be helpful as we develop our new curriculum focused on Minnesota's Changing Climate that integrates items from Will's archives. Over the next few months as we dive into the archives I will be sharing some of discoveries and ideas of ways they an be integrated into the classroom.

This week we pulled out a weather scrapbook that Will had beginning in 1956 when he was 10 years old. The scrapbook is in a tattered old three ring containing lined paper. Each page contains weather data and articles cut out from the newspaper and attached with now yellowed scotch tape. They give a snapshot of extreme weather events and patterns between 1954 and 1956. Did you know there was snowstorm on May 3, 1954? Did you know they used to publish cool graphs that showed the temperature ranges over the month and what the high, lows, and precipitation had been? What a great way to introduce students to graphing after following temperatures over a month.

Finding ways to make scientific research accessible  to the non scientist is important, if not essential, especially on topics related to environmental issues. I thought I'd take today to review one of my favorite educational tools that makes science accessible to middle schoolers, The Natural Inquirer. The Natural Inquirer is a middle school science education journal, published by the USDA Forest Service, that shares research published in scientific journals and conducted by Forest Service scientists.  Each article include an introduction, method, findings, discussion and associated tables and graphs as in a real research article, but written at a middle school reading level.  One of the things I like about the journal, is that each scientist is introduced in the beginning with a photo and why they enjoy science.  The journal also include a glossary of terms, questions for reflection, and a lesson plan with suggestions of how to integrate the journal into the classroom.  Students are even introduced to peer review because each edition is reviewed by a middle school class "editorial review board."  Topics covered in the journals are all related to environmental science, and they have an entire library of climate change related research articles.

The Natural Inquirer is a great resource for middle school classrooms not only because of the opportunity to learn about complex environmental science topics at a middle school level, but because of the introduction to how scientific research is done and communicated.  I think that it could easily be used beyond middle schoolers, at a high school, and even college level.  Challenging upper level students to look at the primary source first, compare how it was "translated," and then asking them to do a translation of their own of another research article would be a great addition to an environmental science course.