PBS, NASA Partner to Help Educators With Climate Change Lessons
By SLJ Staff -- School Library Journal, 11/6/2009
If you’re looking for a way to teach a lesson on climate change that includes science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) concepts, you’re in luck. PBS TeacherLine has partnered with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to create a series of professional development courses and teaching resources on the subject.
Using a nearly $600,000 grant from the NASA Global Climate Change Education, PBS TeacherLine, hopes to help pre-K-12 educators engage students in critical lessons on climate change, while also incorporating crucial STEM concepts.
Teaching Climate Change: K-12 Online Professional Development from PBS and NASA focuses primarily on the development of two new online professional development courses for teachers focused on climate change, and, which are aligned with content-area standards for middle and high school teachers.
Both courses are intended to strengthen teachers' knowledge of the science of climate change, enable them to use STEM instructional techniques to investigate climate change with their students, and integrate various NASA resources into classroom instruction. Through current NASA earth observing missions such as Terra, Aura and SORCE, NASA is generating valuable data for the study of climate change, including measurements of atmospheric temperatures, sea ice thickness and extent, solar radiation, sea surface height, and aerosol concentrations.
The grant will also fund the creation of a series of 10 online self-paced lessons containing resources from PBS and NASA, which will be offered for free through the PBS Teachers Web site. Teachers can use the lessons to enhance their knowledge of climate science and to access classroom activities for teaching climate change.
"The partnership brings together PBS's award-winning science content and online professional development model with NASA's unsurpassed scientific resources to make a significant contribution to K-12 education," says Melinda George, senior director of PBS TeacherLine. "The Teaching Climate Change program explores arguably the most pervasive and influential issue of our time to ensure teachers and students gain the knowledge and skills needed to be successful in the 21st century and protect Earth for generations to come."
Since NASA scientist James Hansen’s testimony to Congress 20 years ago on global warming, the global scientific community has described the warming of the earth's climate as "unequivocal," citing increases in global air and ocean temperatures, rising sea levels, and widespread melting of snow and ice.
Public awareness and concern about climate change also has grown, driving green technology initiatives in businesses and schools across the United States.
Studies show that young people are especially worried. A 2007 survey of middle school students in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia suggests that climate change is more frightening to them than car crashes, cancer, terrorism, and war, with many students reporting that they often lose sleep over it.
The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) says environmental education on issues like climate change is critical because "student knowledge of environmental concepts establishes a foundation for their future understandings and actions as citizens.” Schools are also responsible for helping cultivate the next generation of professionals in STEM-related fields, who may someday contribute solutions to environmental challenges.
The online professional development courses and resources will be available by the summer of 2012.
