Abstract
This paper describes a three-year curriculum innovation project on teaching about climate change. The innovation for this study focused on a socio-critical approach towards teaching climate change in four different teaching domains (biology, chemistry, physics and politics). The teaching itself explicitly aimed at general educational objectives, i.e., fostering students’ communication and evaluation abilities as essential components for preparing young people for active participation in society. Participatory Action Research has been used as a collaborative strategy of cyclical curriculum innovation and research. Using past experiences and selected results from accompanying research, this project and its methodology will be reflected upon from the viewpoint of the chemistry group taking part in the project. Core issues reflected upon include how the project contributed to the creation of feasible curriculum materials, how it led to innovative structures in practice, and whether itsupported experienced teachers’ ongoing professional development. General considerations for the process of curriculum innovation will also be derived.
Highlights
Climate change has become one of the most dominant sciencerelated issues in today’s political debate (e.g., Ekborg & Areskoug, 2006)
Allgemeinbildung in this sense conceptualises the central goal of any contemporary education to help students better their capabilities in self-determination, political participation and solidarity with others in a democratic society (e.g., Hofstein, Eilks & Bybee, 2011)
The basis for many of these decisions is still undetermined, which makes climate change an interesting topic for contemporary education in general and for science education in particular
Summary
Climate change has become one of the most dominant sciencerelated issues in today’s political debate (e.g., Ekborg & Areskoug, 2006). All school subjects selected the sociocritical and problem-oriented approach to science teaching (Marks & Eilks, 2009) and employed role-playing exercises to enhance learning about how socio-scientific issues such as climate change are handled by society. The lesson plans are improved stepwise in ongoing cycles of testing, evaluation, self-reflection and restructuring (Fig. 1) During this cyclical refinement of teaching strategies, the perspectives of all participants (teachers, students, and researchers) are taken into consideration using a multi-perspective approach of evaluation (Eilks & Ralle, 2002). Within the project “The Climate Change Before the Court”, designing the lesson plans for each subject was inspired by the sociocritical and problem-oriented approach to science teaching (Fig. 3) as originally developed by Eilks (2000, 2002) for chemistry education. The materials focusing on socio-scientific reflection about climate change are being applied by these participants as an accompaniment to more content-focused offers already existing in their exhibition programmes
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