Engaging discussion about climate change in a Quebec secondary school: A challenge for science teachers

Abstract

Abstract The article analyzes the process of double stimulation in a two-year effort of two science teachers to create and implement a new approach in their teaching. Double stimulation was triggered by three types of conflicts of motives, the first one related to teaching strategies, the second one related to the concept of environment itself, and the third one related to values promoted at the school. The teachers constructed a second stimulus in the form of an open-ended teaching sequence to address the issue of climate change. This artifact enabled the teachers to take agentive actions and implement a novel instructional strategy in their classrooms. As the teaching sequence was progressively implemented and reformulated, pressures from the parents and the school management led to the emergence of new conflicts of motives.