In this talk, given November 2019 at the Lund University Teaching and Learning Conference, I answer four research questions.
The TL DN answer is in () below, see slides for more details:
1. What does one need to know to be climate literate? (Understand the IPCC Summary for Policymakers, which we made into a teaching framework, please use it!)
2. How well do universities teach climate literacy? (poorly)
3. How well do high schools teach climate literacy? (poorly)
4. How much do high schools focus on high-impact climate actions? (very little)
Teaching Climate Literacy in High Schools & Universities
1. A university climate curriculum
based on synthesis science
@KA_Nicholas
Kimberly Nicholas
Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS)
kimnicholas.com
Warming stripes for Sweden, 1860-2018, Bolin Centre
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4. Research questions
1. What does one need to know to be climate
literate?
2. How well do universities teach climate literacy?
3. How well do high schools teach climate literacy?
4. How much do high schools focus on high-impact
climate actions?
@KA_Nicholas 4
5. Research questions
1. What does one need to know to be climate
literate?
2. How well do universities teach climate literacy?
3. How well do high schools teach climate literacy?
4. How much do high schools focus on high-impact
climate actions?
@KA_Nicholas 5
6. Key SPM Messages
19 Headlines
on less than 2 Pages
2009: WGI Outline Approved
14 Chapters
Atlas of Regional Projections
54,677 Review Comments
by 1089 Experts
2010: 259 Authors Selected
Summary for Policymakers
ca. 14,000 Words
3rd Lead Author Meeting, Marrakech, Morocco, April 2012@KA_Nicholas 6
7. Synthesis Science on Climate
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It’s warming
It’s us
We’re sure
It’s bad We can fix it
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8. Support for climate policy and social
action linked to key beliefs
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Ding et al., 2011, Nature Climate Change
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14. Nicholas et al., 2015,
http://www.kimnicholas.com/climate-change-curriculum.html Design by Pontus Ambros
It’s us
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15. Nicholas et al., 2015,
http://www.kimnicholas.com/climate-change-curriculum.html Design by Pontus Ambros
It’s bad
@KA_Nicholas 15
16. We can fix it!
Nicholas et al., 2015,
http://www.kimnicholas.com/climate-change-curriculum.html
Design by Pontus Ambros
@KA_Nicholas 16
17. Research questions
1. What does one need to know to be climate
literate?
2. How well do universities teach climate literacy?
3. How well do high schools teach climate literacy?
4. How much do high schools focus on high-impact
climate actions?
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18. 56% of 70 int’l courses on climate
teach only one of 6 topics
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0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70Coursescoveringtopic
Nicholas et al., 2015,
http://www.kimnicholas.com/climate-change-curriculum.html
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19. Research questions
1. What does one need to know to be climate
literate?
2. How well do universities teach climate literacy?
3. How well do high schools teach climate literacy?
4. How much do high schools focus on high-impact
climate actions?
@KA_Nicholas 19
21. Wynes & Nicholas, 2019, PLoS ONEFigure: Emma Li Johansson
Canadian high schools teach human
warming, not consensus, impacts or solutions
N=10 provincial curricula and learning objectives
22. Research questions
1. What does one need to know to be climate
literate?
2. How well do universities teach climate literacy?
3. How well do high schools teach climate literacy?
4. How much do high schools focus on high-impact
climate actions?
@KA_Nicholas 22
23. 2010 emissions must be halved globally by 2030 to
be on track to limit warming to 1.5°C (IPCC 2018)
Wynes & Nicholas, 2017, Environmental Research Letters
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Graphic by Catrin Jakobsson
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24. Budget for household emissions for <1.5°C:
2.5 tons/person/year in 2030 (1.5° Lifestyles Report)
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One roundtrip flight NYC-London=
64% of a sustainable annual carbon budget
Wynes & Nicholas, 2017, Environmental Research LettersGraphic by Catrin Jakobsson
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25. Only 4% (10/216) actions mentioned in Canadian
high school textbooks are high-impact
Wynes & Nicholas, 2017, Environmental Research LettersGraphic: Catrin Jakobsson
27. Emissions pathway to stay below 1.5°C
warming: must plummet towards zero
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Source: https://www.cicero.oslo.no/no/posts/klima/stylised-pathways-to-well-below-2c
• Rapid transition away
from coal, oil, & gas
• Reduced animal
agriculture
• Increase carbon
in soils and
vegetation
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30. Conclusions
• There is an urgent need for a comprehensive,
research-based climate change course in higher
education, which at present is largely unmet.
• Current climate education tends to be narrowly
focused and misses many of the most important
elements of climate literacy.
• Climate education must stop failing 21st century
students.
• Universities have a responsibility and opportunity to
lead by example in putting our research into
teaching and practice.
@KA_Nicholas 30
Editor's Notes
We live in a warming world
How quickly we manage to limit warming will determine the quality of life for us, our students, and life on earth for thousands of years.
Social context:
Univ. law “we all must teach sustainability”
Sweden has a climate law we must meet
Voters- inform elections, evaluate parties
UN SDGs, climate action, paris agreement
(inform jobs, etc.)
There’s a disconnect between education and society/the real world
Climate impacts are happening fast,
Catastrophic ecological tipping point or transformative social tipping point- which will come first?
Given this context:
What do students need to know about climate change?
https://www.greenpeace.org/malaysia/story/1154/our-favourite-photos-from-the-student-climate-strike/
IPCC- government appointed experts from around the world under umbrella of UN
Their job is to synthesize the peer-reviewed literature
I argue that understanding the basics in IPCC Summaries for Policymakers is what it means to be climate literate
State of the science- universal agreement (both scientific and political, line by line agreement for SPMs)
Increasingly criticized for being too conservative (their findings are very robust, but may miss/underestimate likelihood of high-risk events/tipping points)
Here’s how to sum up what the IPCC says by working group.
Research behind the 5 things- see my website (people need to know this to support climate policy/behavior change)
These 5 points also make a handy footnoted protest sign, feel free to reuse!
To turn the IPCC Synthesis report into a curriculum framework for climate literacy: We used qualitative content analysis (NVivo software) to code the content of the
IPCC AR5 Synthesis Report. Two independent researchers coded the entire report,
with 92.8% agreement between categories.
• The coding frame was developed in an iterative process. Initial categories were
identified from the major headings from the Summary for Policymakers from the
three working groups of the IPCC, and five elements from Krosnick et al. (2006,
Climatic Change) and Ding et al. (2011, Nature Climate Change).
• These were used to identify six core topics (center of wheel) and their constituent
elements, refined through ongoing coding, resulting in the above framework for a
comprehensive climate change curriculum.(“it’s climate” was added here, it includes basic physics that are well understood and not reviewed by IPCC, but often found in elementary courses/textbooks and needed to understand some of the work of IPCC, e.g., how energy and heat is transferred from equator to poles via ocean and atmospheric circulation).
Ta-da! Here’s the framework.
We could be in Svante Arrhenius’ day in terms of how we’re teaching climate at universities today.
We are not preparing students for the world in the 21st century if we’re not teaching that climate change is bad.
We
analyzed
the
curricula
of
70
courses
on
climate
change
currently
being
taught
at
top
universi:es
worldwide
rela:ve
to
our
framework.
• Based
on
analysis
of
syllabi
available
online
or
provided
by
course
instructors,
we
found
that
the
majority
(56%)
covered
only
one
of
the
six
core
topics;
only
one
course
(at
Harvard
University)
covered
all
six
topics
(data
not
shown).
• Within
the
core
topics,
the
most
commonly
taught
(by
nearly
60%
of
courses)
was
“It’s
climate,”
focusing
on
the
func:oning
of
the
natural
climate
system.
Less
than
20%
included
climate
change
impacts
(“It’s
bad”),
and
less
than
a
third
focused
on
climate
change
policy
and
solu:ons
(“We
can
fix
it.”)
We found that learning objectives tend to
focus on knowledge of the first three elements, with little or no emphasis on scientific consensus, climate change impacts, or ways
to address the issue. The provinces of Saskatchewan and Ontario provide the most comprehensive standards for climate change
education, while Nova Scotia and New Brunswick provide the least.
while in general Canadian curricula cover the fact that anthropogenic climate change is happening, there was not enough focus on possible solutions, and some provinces presented human causes as a subject of debate, rather than a scientific consensus.
“A focus on inaccurate scientific controversy is problematic,” said lead author Wynes. “If you ask students to debate whether or not climate change is happening, or if it’s caused by humans, it gives them the idea that there’s disagreement on facts established with great scientific certainty.”
Despite having the highest per capita greenhouse emissions in the country, Saskatchewan was found to have the most comprehensive climate change curriculum. B.C. ranked 9th.
Number of core climate change topics addressed in high school curricula (out of a maximum of 6). The topics include physical climate mechanisms (“It’s climate”), observed increase in temperature (“It’s warming”), human causes of warming (“It’s us”), scientific consensus (“Experts agree”), negative consequences associated with warming (“It’s bad”), and the possibility for avoiding the worst effects (“We can fix it”).
Saskatchewan: 6
Ontario: 5
Newfoundland and Labrador: 5
Quebec: 5
Prince Edward Island: 5
Alberta: 4
Northwest Territories: 4
Nunavut: 4
British Columbia: 3
Manitoba: 3
Yukon: 3
New Brunswick: 1
Nova Scotia: 1
Right?
Emissions today must be reduced fast- these come from the sources in the red box, so living car, flight, meat free are the highest impact personal climate actions to cut emissions fast.
Choosing to have a child has a long-term carbon legacy, which over many generations is enormous at today’s emissions rates. However, people alive today will use up the remaining carbon budget to limit warming to 1.5°C before 2030 at present rates of burning fossil fuels and raising livestock. So the urgent task to stabilize the climate is to reduce emissions from those sectors immediately.
Study: http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7541
Magazine articles, films, infographics, supporting materials: http://www.kimnicholas.com/responding-to-climate-change.html
Using scientific syntheses as the basis for university curricula would help close the gap between research and classroom learning, promote increased scientific understanding, and help ensure that the resources devoted to scientific synthesis efforts are translated to broader benefits for society.
Such courses are essential to promote deep student learning using
thoughtfully designed teaching and assessment activities to
promote intended learning outcomes, as well as the real-world
illustration of the method of scientific inquiry applied to socially
relevant problems..