Teaching Climate Change Science to Undergradutes with Diverse & Digital Pedagogical Techniquees

Abstract:

California University of Pennsylvania (CalUPA) is unique relative to other undergraduate geoscience programs in that their climate science offerings are varied and inter-woven into an existing meteorology degree program, which aligns with the guidelines established by the American Meteorological Society (AMS). In addition to the rigorous meteorological requirements, the program strives to increase students’ climate literacy. At the introductory course level, students are required to use the educational resources offered by the AMS—specifically their weather and climate studies materials, which have recently transitioned to a digital format. The Earth Sciences Program at CalUPA recently incorporated these new digital resources into a climatology course with novel pedagogical variants. These teaching strategies were well received by students and may benefit other climatology courses at similar institutions. For example, students were tasked with expounding upon textbook content from ‘Topic In Depth’ segments; they were required to present tangential climate topics in a digital presentation. Moreover, students mined the scientific literature listed at the end of each chapter in the text to identify climate scientists immersed in social media. Students were then required to follow these scientists and engage each other within a social media platform. Finally, as a culminating experience, students were required to create digital portfolios (e.g., infographic) related to climate science and the AMS materials. This presentation will further detail CalUPA’s climatological course offerings and detail how the AMS resources were connected to course requirements listed herein.