Climate Change Science in the K-12 Classroom: Does it Fit?

1. Climate Change Science in the K-12 Classroom: Does it Fit? Jacque Ewing-Taylor Nevada EPSCoR Annual Meeting Lase Vegas, February 13, 2012

2. Current Program Issues Target middle school teachers More interest from HS; some elementary Difficulty working CC lesson plans into classes

3. The Current Standards • Atmospheric Processes and the Water Cycle (Earth and Space Science Unifying Concept A) • Earth systems have internal and external sources of energy, both of which create heat. Driven by sunlight and Earth's internal heat, a variety of cycles connect and continually circulate energy and material through the components of the earth systems.

4. The New Science Standards Framework limited number of elements in three dimensions: (1) scientific and engineering practices, (2) crosscutting concepts, and (3) disciplinary core ideas in science describes how they should be developed across grades K-12 designed so students continually build on and revise knowledge and abilities throughout school all three dimensions need to be integrated into standards, curricula, instruction, and assessment

5. Life Science Ecosystem Dynamics, Functioning, and Resilience What happens to ecosystems when the environment changes? “…many changes are induced by human activity, such as resource extraction, adverse land use patterns, pollution, introduction of nonnative species, and global climate change.”

6. By The End of Grade 2: The places where plants and animals live often change, sometimes slowly and sometimes rapidly. When animals and plants get too hot or too cold, they may die. If they can’t find enough food, water, or air, they may die.

7. By The End of Grade 5: When the environment changes in ways that affect a place’s physical characteristics, temperature, or availability of resources, some organisms survive and reproduce, others move to new locations, yet others move into the transformed environment, and some die.

8. By The End of Grade 8: Ecosystems are dynamic in nature; their characteristics can vary over time. Disruptions to any physical or biological component of an ecosystem can lead to shifts in all its populations. Biodiversity describes the variety of species found in Earth’s terrestrial and oceanic ecosystems. The completeness or integrity of an ecosystem’s biodiversity is often used as a measure of its health.

9. By The End of Grade 12: A complex set of interactions within an ecosystem can keep its numbers and types of organisms relatively constant over long periods of time under stable conditions. If a modest biological or physical disturbance to an ecosystem occurs, it may return to its more-or-less original status (i.e., the ecosystem is resilient), as opposed to becoming a very different ecosystem. Extreme fluctuations in conditions or the size of any population, however, can challenge the functioning of ecosystems in terms of resources and habitat availability. Moreover, anthropogenic changes (induced by human activity) in the environment—including habitat destruction, pollution, introduction of invasive species, overexploitation, and climate change—can disrupt an ecosystem and threaten the survival of some species.

10. Implications for EPSCoR Education Programs Easier to incorporate CC science into classrooms at ALL levels Increased emphasis on K-8 Increased emphasis on science process: claims, evidence, reasoning

11. Questions?