A Culturally Relevant Teacher Professional Development for Teaching Climate Change to Native American Students

Abstract

The science of climate change is a complex subject to teach. Teachers find climate change a challenging topic to teach due to a myriad of reasons. Gayford, 2010 describes some of the challenges teachers face while teaching climate change science as “first, the controversial nature of the topic; second, it does not relate well to the normal sequencing and division of topics within most science courses; and, third, there are important non-scientific aspects to possible solutions to the problem” (p.1191). This is a particular challenge for teachers with a diverse population. This paper reports on teachers’ understanding of climate change science concepts and how to teach science with a focus on cultural relevance by participating in a three-year teacher profession development program specifically for science teachers teaching a large population of Native American students. Overall teachers demonstrated gains in understanding of how scientists access data to study climate impacts and how to present climate change science concepts that tap into culturally relevant ways.