Track 7. Advances on Sustainable Development in Higher Education Authors: Pablo Herrero Teijón, Santiago Andrés Sánchez, María Isabel Asensio Sevilla, Anne-Marie Ballegeer, Diego Corrochano Fernández, María Laura Delgado Martín, Vanessa Izquierdo Álvarez, Jesús Manuel Sampedro Gómez, Camilo Ruiz Méndez and Susana Lagüela López

1. A MOOC on the science of climate change for
primary and secondary teachers in Spanish.
Camilo Ruiz Méndez, Pablo Herrero Teijón, Santiago Andrés Sánchez, María Isabel Asensio
Sevilla, Anne-Marie Ballegeer, Diego Corrochano Fernández, María Laura Delgado Martín,
Vanessa Izquierdo Álvarez, Jesús Manuel Sampedro Gómez and Susana Lagüela López
Departamento de Didáctica de la Matemáticas y las ciencias experimentales
camilo@usal.es

4. Outline
• Motivation & context
• The GAP problem
• Design principles
• Our MOOC

5. Our (practical) motivations
• Concerned citizens: We want to know and do more.
• Everybody knows that education is important
• Mobilize society: We need well informed citizens to
participate in the debate and the to take action
• Non educated citizens will be left behind

6. Institutional Motivations
• By raising awareness and promoting knowledge and
skills-development, education is an essential
component and a catalyst for responding to global
climate change.
• Article 6 of the UNFCCC: promote, develop and
implement educational, training and public
awareness programmes
• The UN DESD 2005-2014: Climate Change is
one of the key action themes of the decade.

7. The GAP problem
• Gap between high quality
science and the rest
• Science is good:
identifies the causes and
points to the
consequences
• All this research does
not reach the schools
or the general public

8. Proposal
• Create a course on the Science of Climate Change
• Target the primary and high school teachers
• In Spanish
• Use the MOOC format
• Diagnostic of existing materials and produce design
principles

9. Our particular problem
• For Spanish speaking public
• For primary and high school
teachers and students
• Not agencies like NASA, NOAA
which provide high quality materials
• Lack of quality and scientific
rigor
• Gap: Science and the material
which is used normally

10. Design principles
Build the content
around very basic
questions
Simple lenguaje
but rigorous
concepts
Evidence based
and scientifically
accurate
Positive
narrative
Use of simple and
relevant graphs
and meaningful
imagery

11. Contents around simple questions
SCIENCE
SOCIETY
• People need to know:
• What is Climate Change?
• What are the causes?
• What are the consequences?
• What can we do?

12. Good Science

13. Cross curricular &
multidisciplinary perspective

14. MOOC
• Measure the impact
• Easy to keep up to date
• Provide formation and materials to teachers and students

15. Proposed solution:
http://medialab.usal.es/concienciacioncambioclimatico/

16. Guidelines to communicate Climate Change
• “Nobody cares how much you know until they know that you care”
• Be a confident communicator
• Talk about the real world, not abstract ideas
• Connect with what matters to your audience
• Tell a human story
• Lead with what you know
• Use the most effective visual communication

17. Effective visual communications

18. Outlook & Conclusions
• Education is important tool for climate adaptation and
mitigation
• We need to use effective tools to communicate the
science
• Opportunities to mobilize the society
• Put Climate Change the education national
programs.

19. Acknowledgment
• Santiago Andrés-Sánchez, Laura Delgado-Martín, Javier Macaya, Miguel
Diego Corrochano-Fernández, Departamento de Didáctica de la Matemática y
Didáctica de las Ciencias Experimentales, University of Salamanca
• Fernando Almaraz, Servicio de Producción e Innovación Digital, University of
Salamanca
• María Isabel Asensio-Sevilla, Departamento de Matemática Aplicada, University
of Salamanca
• Teresa Martín, Miguel Ángel Gimeno, Anne-Marie Clara Ballegeer, Jesus
Manuel Sampedro Gómez, MEDIALAB, University of Salamanca
• Vanessa Izquierdo, Servicio de Producción e Innovación Digital, University of
Salamanca

20. The message and the messenger

21. The message and the messenger

22. Thanks!
camilo@usal.es
@copilco1
@CienciaUSAL