"You Have to Have Beliefs to Believe Something": Preservice Teachers Collaboratively Examine Climate Change

• In Event: 66.033 - STEM in Teacher Preparation

Abstract

Climate change is an issue with far-reaching social, political, demographic, and economic impacts. If educators are to play a role in addressing complex topics and challenges like climate change, we need to create conditions for pre-service teachers to have substantive dialogue across perspectives. In this paper we explore how pre-service teachers with different beliefs about climate change read and evaluate online sources in paired interviews with a task of determining reliable sources for deciding what, if anything, they might do to address the issue. A primacy of belief exists in conversation about climate change, but this study finds that in a task-focused conversation humility and uncertainty open up possibilities for collaborative action.

Authors

• Alexandra Panos, Indiana University - Bloomington

• James S. Damico, Indiana University