All Climate Change Is Local: Students' Perceptions of Science as an Integral Part of Climate Change Education

• In Event: 45.055 - Promoting Effective Climate Change Education Through School-Wide Initiatives, Digital Literacy, and Ethics Education

Abstract

Objective:

As the conference call for submissions notes, “discrete and disconnected facts alone will not sway people’s opinions.” Yet some proponents of climate change education focus on facts alone as the key to persuading students of the need to address human-created climate change. Although engaging students in science-based explorations of climate is vital to their education, other research (Callison 2014; Eubanks 2015) demonstrates that scientific evidence by itself is not enough to shape understandings of climate change. Instead, local cultural perceptions of both science and traditions of authority are crucial to how communities understand and respond to the issues of climate change. This presentation discusses how digital literacy practices can help students in different classrooms compare the local discussions of science and climate change. It is through such comparisons that we believe students will develop more nuanced conceptions of how authority is constructed and how this impacts attitudes and behaviors regarding our response to climate change.

Perspectives and Theoretical Framework:

I ground this presentation in the ethnographic work of Callison (2014) that demonstrates the ways in which different communities respond to the discussions of climate change. In addition, I draw on rhetorical theory on conceptions of authority and agency (Campbell, 2005; Cooper, 2011) to analyze how students perceive science, and more specifically, climate change science, in their local community context. In addition I ground this research in scholarship on the composing and sharing of digital media texts across cultures as a way of exploring civic and political education (Ito, et al., 2015; Kahne & Eidman-Aadahl, 2016).

Methods and data sources:

The students in our partner classrooms are engaged in activities that allow them to examine how science is perceived in their local community and what sources and figures are regarded as authoritative. They will analyze media coverage of climate change in local sources and conduct interviews with family and community members. They will then compose blogs, videos, and podcasts that they will share with, and respond to, from students in the other schools. Data includes classroom observations, interviews with participants, and textual analysis

Results:

Observations, interviews, and textual artefacts are analyzed through rhetorical frameworks about the construction of conceptions of authority and agency. The findings provide detailed understanding of how students interpret and respond to information about climate change, and whether classroom activities can help them form more reflective and critical responses.

Significance

The ways in which local publics construct science and understand authority shape how people respond to a politically charged issue such as climate change. Teaching students about climate change must help students recognize and balance global and local understanding of science and its role in specific communities. Sharing digital media texts across cultures helps students understand more about how such issues may be experienced in other cultures and, in doing so, learn more about the similarities and differences in such experiences. What’s more, such experiences help students reflect on their own experiences and become more critically engaged with how cultural contexts shape their perceptions of science.

Author

• Bronwyn T. Williams, University of Louisville