Key questions about climate change education and research

Key questions about climate change education and research

Alan Reid (Monash University)

http://explore.tandfonline.com/content/ed/ceer-vsi-on-climate-change ]

 

 

What is this thing called climate change education?

What does it mean to do climate change education?

Or is the question, why there has to be such a thing, more vital?

 

What is climate change education expected to accomplish?

Are current approaches to climate change education sufficient to the task?

Is climate change education the priority of priorities in these times (and what are the alternatives)?

 

Is what is supposed to happen in climate change education happening?

Is there confusion about how climate change education relates to both education and climate change?

How has climate change education been understood and how else might it be thought, or thought about better?

 

From a research perspective, what needs questioning in climate change education?

Is there a strong case for investigating some things more closely than others, now and soon?

Might it be what influences climate change education the most, who asserts what, who argues that … or something other?

 

What can be said about climate change education based on research evidence?

What hasn’t yet been researched adequately, or enough, in relation to climate change education?

In what ways do the key issues in climate change education vary depending on one’s literature, circumstances, or point of departure?

 

Where can one go to find the best research-based statements on climate change education?

In making sense of scholarly arguments about climate change and education, which dialogic principles and partners help?

What happens to climate change mitigation and adaptation that doesn’t engage with education, or educational research?

Is everything equally important in climate change education?

What isn’t required, or needed, in climate change education?

What is critical if not crucial to climate change education?

 

When does climate change education happen, and does raising that imply it needs to happen often too?

Is there an end to climate change education, or for that matter, must it have a particular beginning?

Who decides what is engaged in climate change education, how, and for whom?

 

In what ways is it true that education is intrinsic to both creating and countering climate change?

Which forms of education can climate change adaptation and mitigation do without?

Are certain gaps or silences inevitable about climate change and education?

 

Must there be something unique or special to climate change education?

Is climate change education well served by companion forms of education and climate change action?

Does it matter if climate change education is contradicted by other forms of education, or climate change action – or inaction?

 

Is climate change education inevitable?

Is it quite clear what is at stake in climate change education?

Or is the question, what is being dared through doing climate change education when contrasted with what if it there is none?

 

When someone claims they are doing climate change education, should they be accountable in terms of to who, to what or to where?

Is a true sense of purpose deferred or found through climate change education?

Is it fair to expect climate change education to be enjoyable?

 

If climate change education relies on frameworks, is it clear who the frame-makers are and how they frame it?

Is what gets affirmed as much as disconfirmed two sides of the same coin in climate change education (and what of the edge)?

Should anything be done if instances of climate change education don’t comply a certain expectation, or mold?

Is climate change education hard?

Is climate change (and) education inherently gloomy?

Why is it that some people treat climate change education as in vain?

 

How is climate change education limited?

When is climate change education compromised?

In those hands is climate change education considered dangerous, and why?

 

How might climate change education be assessed?

Is evaluating climate change education from an educational and/or a climate change perspective the key point for decision?

Does discussion about climate change education research need a certain focus: on what is researched and how, on findings, on implications …?

 

What happens to climate change education when the best of climate change education research is engaged?

Is research that challenges prevailing assumptions about climate change education the most important to pursue?

Is there a compelling case to be more selective in terms of which research is undertaken or brought to bear on climate change education?

 

What are the subtle to the more obvious insights that can be gleaned from research on climate change education?

Should anything about climate change education be regarded as unequivocal from a research perspective?

Are researchers still at a stage where initial questions are raised rather than surfacing anything more conclusive?

 

Which kinds of research are most useful for informing or reforming climate change education?

Are these the same for what is usable in enriching climate change education, such as confirming, comparing or critique?

What are the most significant strengths and weaknesses of research on climate change education?

 

Which research is past its ‘use by date’ in climate change education?

What research about climate change education is needed now?

How are climate change education research priorities decided and enabled?

 

Whose (rather than which) research questions about climate change education are fundamental?

Who should be doing climate change education research, and responding to the outcomes?

Must climate change education research be designed in ways that make a difference to those adapting to and mitigating climate change?

 

Which research topics in climate change education are enduring and which need refining?

Might the focus in researching climate change education now be on matters of creativity, authenticity, urgency … or something else?

In terms of research imperatives for climate change education, is it solely a question of within or across disciplines, funders or stakeholders?

 

In what ways does it matter that climate change education is yet isn’t a form of climate change communication?

What are the risks and benefits in having climate change education focus on awareness or behaviour change?

What should be expected of, and communicated about, good climate change education?

 

Where has climate change education come from?

Where is climate change education going?

What can’t be learnt from reflecting on the current state of the art on research on climate change education?

 

How should what counts as a better way to do climate change education be determined?

What will make climate change education different tomorrow, and not like today’s, or yesterday’s?

Climate change education – why now, why not?

Start the week with climate change education and research

Education Day (16 November) at the 2017 UN climate change conference in Bonn (6 – 17 November 2017) sees the public launch of a Virtual Special Issue of the journal, Environmental Education Research, focused on climate change education research.

As a taster of the launch event and a stimulus for engaging with the papers in the Virtual Special Issue, Alan Reid has prepared a series of key questions about climate change education and research, hosted on https://tinyurl.com/ceer-vsi. Visit the link to read the Virtual Special Issue for free.

Running the gamut of why climate change education has emerged, where to look for critical analysis of practice, progress and new directions, and what research and researchers have to offer debates about capacity building, awareness, participation and action strategies discussed at COP23, the papers in the VSI and Alan’s questions are a timely and provocative call to reflection and action about climate change and education.

The launch at COP23 is led by Alan Reid (Editor) and Marcia McKenzie (Associate Editor) from the journal. Guest editors of the Virtual Special Issue, they are also editing a follow-on special collection of new research papers and analysis on climate change education, to be published in Environmental Education Research in 2018.

Join the conversation about the VSI and climate change education! Participate via:
facebook.com/eerjournal (link is external)
#COP23education
https://naaee.org/eepro/groups/climate-change-education

 

Probing into the sources of ignorance: science teachers’ practices of constructing arguments or rebuttals to denialism of climate change

Probing into the sources of ignorance: science teachers’ practices of constructing arguments or rebuttals to denialism of climate change

  • New EER Article Alert

Asli Sezen-Barrie, Nicole Shea & Jenna Hope Borman

Pages: 0-21 | DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2017.1330949

Abstract

This study focuses on the nature of teachers’ arguments for and rebuttals to 10 denial theories about anthropogenic climate change that are most commonly encountered in the media and public debates. Through a semi-structured survey, the study collected data from 24 participants who are K-12 teachers in Maryland and Delaware. The deductive coding and frequency analysis of data shows that although all participants of our study agree with the importance of teaching anthropogenic climate change, some teachers agree with the denial theories of climate change. The arguments for the denial theories show less epistemic quality than the rebuttals against denial theories. Moreover, teachers went beyond the textbooks and searched for other varied sources of information. However, we noticed that teachers might still doubt the anthropogenic causes of climate change. The study further uses intertextual discourse analysis to explore the reasons why use of sources might still leave teachers confused.

Keywords: Climate change, teacher education, arguments/rebuttals

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13504622.2017.1330949

#newEERpaper

Development and validation of the anthropogenic climate change dissenter inventory

Development and validation of the anthropogenic climate change dissenter inventory
– New EER Article Alert
Andrew P. K. Bentley, Heather L. Petcovic & David P. Cassidy
Pages: 1-16 | DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2016.1250150

Abstract
Individuals are exposed to misleading or outright false anthropogenic climate change (ACC) information. The goals of this study are to identify ACC dissenter messages, and to develop an instrument that quantifies the extent to which individuals agree with these messages. The instrument was developed using a sequential mixed methods design. A qualitative analysis of YouTube videos produced a bank of dissenter messages. A Likert-type survey was derived from these statements and completed by adults who reside in the United States of America (N = 133) via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Parametric and non-parametric tests were used to explore the data, determine relations, and test the instrument’s validity and reliability. Dissenter statements factored into five unique categories. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (N = 151) was used to validate the instrument. Results suggest this instrument will be useful for understanding how different segments of the public, as measured by demographic variables, agree with misleading climate material.
Keywords: Climate change, survey, media, environmental education
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13504622.2016.1250150
#newEERpaper

“education is key for a green future” Follow-up on COP22

A few links from UNESCO and the recent COP22 on education and climate change:

A. Launch of “Action for Climate Empowerment: Guidelines for accelerating solutions through education, training and public awareness

B. Video of main event – education key driver to scale-up climate action (streamed live Nov 14, 2016)

This event will bring together environment and education’s ministers and international organizations to discuss how education can enhance the implementation of the climate agenda and INDCs. Good practices will be showcased. A Guidance document for policy makers and ACE focal points will be launched.

C. Video of side event – SDG4: Leaving No One Behind in Climate Change Education (streamed live Nov 14, 2016)

The UN System has taken important steps in promoting climate change education. This side event will provide an occasion to discuss this experience, focusing on groups with traditional learning systems and special learning needs, in particular people with disabilities, indigenous peoples, refugees.

Read more at: UN climate summit says education primes societies for global change | Education | United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

Textbooks of doubt

Textbooks of doubt: using systemic functional analysis to explore the framing of climate change in middle-school science textbooks
– paper in current issue
Diego Román & K.C. Busch
Pages: 1158-1180 | DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2015.1091878

Abstract
Middle school students are learning about climate change in large part through textbooks used in their classes. Therefore, it is crucial to understand how the language employed in these materials frames this topic. To this end, we used systemic functional analysis to study the language of the chapters related to climate change in four sixth grade science textbooks adopted in the state of California. The linguistic variables investigated were: types of nominal groups; processes; circumstances; and the modality system. Our findings showed that these textbooks framed climate change as uncertain in the scientific community – both about whether it is occurring as well as about its human-causation. The implications for science education are discussed in relation to how the current political and public discourses of climate change, rather than the scientific discourse, is influencing how textbooks discuss this topic.
Keywords: systemic functional analysis, climate change, textbooks, uncertainty, framing

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13504622.2015.1091878
#EERcurrentissue

“It has never been more important to equip our next generation with an understanding of sustainability, environment and our changing climate.”

… said, SA Environment Minister Ian Hunter, opening the 2016 AAEE National Conference in Adelaide. Not quite tweetable, but would you have preferred the other “quotes attributable” to the Minister?

South Australia has a proud legacy of promoting long-term sustainability through education.

As the extreme weather events in South Australia over the past week have shown, it will be the next generation who have to increasingly grapple with the harsh extremities of global warming.

Or, as Bob Stevenson raised in response to a research panel on these topics at the conference, What about the equipping and responsibilities of the current generation, particularly if a legacy is to stand up to scrutiny – as well as that of those in politics and with power?

Source: Minister for Sustainability, Environment & Conservation, Government of South Australia

Weather worlding: learning with the elements in early childhood

Weather worlding: learning with the elements in early childhood
– New EER Article Alert
Tonya Rooney
Pages: 1-12 | DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2016.1217398

Abstract
In the context of challenges posed by climate change, this paper draws attention to the significance of children’s relationship with weather. The paper contends that it is time to engage more closely with children’s weather relations when developing and experimenting with new environmental pedagogies. Furthermore, it is argued that there is a need look beyond the ways children learn ‘about’ the weather (where this is presented as something separate to our human selves), to more situated and entangled ways of learning in and ‘with’ weather. Notions such as the ‘weather world’ and ‘weathering’ are discussed here as valuable starting points for re-thinking child/weather relations. These offer a way forward where the lively curiosity of children, combined with the educational practice of being with the weather, may open up alternative, less human-centric ways of coming to know and respond to the environmental challenges ahead.

Keywords: Environmental education, weather, climate change, common world pedagogies, early childhood education

http://ow.ly/Da25303jM8P
#newEERpaper