Teacher Forum

Notes on the Future Classroom

How to Use Classroom Encounters’ Media to Teach Science and Global Change and How Classroom Teaching is Changing

The full length DVDs obviously offer teachers the opportunity to learn themselves (build confidence) about global, climate, and environmental change science, as well as to see modeled how science is actually done and the habits of minds of leading scientists. The chapter stops let teachers navigate through the content as they like, and at their own pace. In the classroom, the chapter stops put teachers in charge – they can grab what they want (short video clips) when they want it - before, during, or after a lesson, hands-on activity, or lab. Teachers pick the clip that fits their performance need: to grab attention, model inquiry, connect to research and data, apply a concept, explain evidence, paint the big picture, or wrap up.

Our experience with teachers (and I'm a teacher), is that the most innovative ones want to intersperse short video into their "performances" to do just what I mentioned above. Students want it, and teachers create better and more interesting lessons. And they can also bring the outside world in, share first hand observations of scientists, explain and interpret real world data, and show the minds of scientists at work (at least with Classroom Encounters’ video this can be done easily).

We also find that the "market" is finally recognizing the needs of classroom teachers, and targeting them (by listening to what THEY want) and moving quickly in this direction. This summer, there’s been a growing interest in what we've been doing. Our library of media in particular has received attention since the video shorts fit teachers’ needs. In bite-sized segments, teachers can intersperse their lessons with media that connects students, via world-class scientists, to society’s quest to understand one of the greatest challenges of the day - our rapidly changing planet.

The media itself, and the participatory process of creating it with scientists, teachers, and students working together, also shows teachers and students how they can transform the learning process - engaging, inspiring, and motivating all participants - by building cooperate learning communities and harnessing 21st century communication technologies. The impetus to build media libraries - creating or accessing existing media assets that enable teachers to teach the standards and tackle 21st century science issues (like global change) - is clearly where the educational innovators are headed.

Rita Chang
Classroom Encounters, LLC
August, 2008

Look below for suggestions on how to introduce global change topics into formal or informal classrooms, and how to link literacy building topics in climate and environmental change science to the state and national frameworks.

Classroom Encounters has led many workshops on how to integrate video into standards-aligned hands-on activities and labs to build scientific literacy. Below is an article Rita Chang wrote for the MEES Conference in March 2008 called Teaching Climate “Aha!s”. (Click here to jump there.)

Please share your experiences and teaching suggestions, so we can learn from one another's and our students' creativity. Email us at supporters@classroomencounters.org if you have suggestions, lesson ideas, resources or experiences to share.

For suggestions and teaching ideas, there are several additional places to explore on this site.

Check out the STUDENT GALLERY to see what students have created after their learning encounters with scientists. We have modeled some award winning student-made "after the classroom encounter" films, poetry, art, research paper topics and bibliographies, PowerPoints, and even student created sound tracks for science videos.

For supporting material for each scientist, please visit the SCIENTIST GALLERY. Behind each scientist's image are materials that augment the DVDs, and show how you can use video clips to help you “team teach” with top scientists. Materials include photos from the field, recommended articles, links, chapter stops, outlines, PowerPoint Presentations, teaching tips, curriculum and lesson ideas.

For example, for some ideas on how to introduce students to Dr. Hoffman’s "Thin Ice - Earth in the Time of Climate Change" DVD, (he and Dr. Schrag worked collaboratively, and together wrote the highly recommended Scientific American article on Snowball Earth.) please click here.

Standards-aligned topic recommendations for earth science, biology, chemistry, and physics at the middle and high school levels are being developed and will be posted soon.

NOAA has just published a Climate Literacy Brochure. Go to www.climate.noaa.gov/education for more information.

Additional information can be found at www.epa.gov/climatechange; http://nsdl.org; www.earthobservatory.nasa.gov

Click here to read Rita Chang's article for the Massachusetts Environmental Education Society (MEES)

Climate Teaching "A-Ha!s"
By Rita Chang

Want to grab the attention of students prior to a lesson? Want to communicate the essence of science as well as the passion of today's leading scientists? Try showing close-up video clips of pioneering scientists as they talk with students about the latest field discoveries in climate science.
Click here to read Scott Gordon's article about teaching with Classroom Encounters DVDs for the Massachusetts Environmental Education Society (MEES)

A Classroom Encounters® Hands-On Activity
By Scott Gordon

The scientific principles behind global climate change cross the boundaries of all major scientific disciplines. The topic of "climate change" can be used to integrate the sciences and show how scientists in the field use expertise from each of the areas of earth science, biology, chemistry, and physics. Specialists studying climate change with expertise in each of these areas come together in teams to try to understand the larger picture.

a newsletter for Massachusetts Marine Educators, Fall 2006 that also features a lead article by climate scientist Dr. Kenneth E. Trenberth, from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and articles by two scientists from Woods Hole and NOAA/North East Fisheries.

Here is a first class "in a nut shell" guide to teaching global warming and climate change.

It's also a quick primer for anyone - student, teacher, parent, citizen - who wants to separate misinformation from the consensus views of thousands of scientists from around the world. The Classroom Encounters DVDs can then augment your teaching by bringing alive climate science and a science-way-of-thinking through intimate, "face to face" learning encounters with top field scientists.

http://hdgc.epp.cmu.edu/teachersguide/teachersguide.htm

http://www.globalwarmingart.com - This “global warming art” site has some terrific graphs, created by Robert A. Rohde, that visually convey the state of knowledge on climate change. They speak volumes about what we know and how we know it, so are worth close study by teacher and student alike. Under Featured Galleries, you’ll find graphs on past temperature, carbon dioxide through time, sea level changes, glaciers, and predictions of future changes which can be used in research papers and PowerPoint presentations. Students could be asked to interpret the stories these graphs tell; teachers could use them in lesson plans to show how climate research is recorded and the evidence we have of the past.

Classroom Encounters recommends this presentation for State of the Art Information on Carbon Sequestration Technologies (6MB, so this may take a while to load, depending on your connection speed and web browser)

"This is a PowerPoint presentation that contains the state of knowledge on carbon sequestration technologies as of 2005. It was approved and published by the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2005, written by over 100 authors from 30 countries on all continents, and extensively reviewed by over 200 experts. It was Presented at UNFCCC COP-11/ Kyoto COP/MOP-1 in Montreal. "