This document summarizes a professional development program called Teaching Climate Change that will offer two online courses for K-12 teachers through PBS and NASA. The goals are to strengthen teachers' understanding of climate science, enable them to teach about climate change using STEM strategies and NASA resources, and foster interdisciplinary approaches. A research study will evaluate the courses' impact on teachers' knowledge, awareness of NASA materials, and classroom practices. Over 200 teachers will participate across control and experimental groups.

1. Teaching Climate Change (TCC): K-12 Online Professional Development from PBS and NASA Melinda George Elizabeth Wolzak

2. PBS TeacherLine High quality professional development content, courses and tools for teachers, coaches and mentors Funded by a USDOE Ready to Teach Grant 2000 – 2005: TeacherLine courses 2006 – 2010: TeacherLine Peer Connection Provide districts a unique partnership through local PBS member stations that facilitate courses and provide local customization of content

3. Project Overview Course Development 2 fully-online, fully-facilitated, graduate level courses Support for middle and high school teachers Station Pilot and Outreach 4 stations will pilot courses, do in-depth outreach and recruit research participants All 67 TL stations will promote courses locally Evaluation focus on impact of courses on teachers including: Knowledge development Awareness of NASA resources Use of interdisciplinary approaches to GCC education

4. Course 1: Development and Research Title: “Teaching About Global Climate Change in Grades 5-8” 45 hour course/ 3 graduate credits Audience: Middle school teachers (5-8) Completed by: May 2010 Piloted: June 2010 Research begins: September 2010

5. Course 2: Development and Research Title: “Teaching About Global Climate Change in Grades 9-12” 45 hour course/ 3 graduate credits Audience: High school teachers (9-12) Completed by: May 2011 Piloted: June 2011 Research begins: September 2011

6. Course 1: “Teaching About Global Climate Change in Grades 5-8” Goals: Strengthen teachers’ knowledge of science to understand climate change Enable teachers’ use of STEM teaching strategies to investigate GCC with their students Facilitate the integration of NASA resources into instruction Foster connections between GCCE and existing standards and curriculum

7. Course 1: Essential Question “How can we use NASA and PBS resources, STEM methodology, and 21 st century tools to teach students in grades 5-8 about GCC change?”

8. The course is about: Learning about GCC, mitigations and adaptations Teaching in the 21 st Century using NASA and PBS resources, and Web 2.0 Teaching digital natives about GCC Generating student interest and knowledge about GCC, and STEM

9. Research The research will be designed and conducted by: The Center for Research in Educational Policy (CREP) at The University of Memphis With assistance from: Interactive Educational Systems Design (IESD)

10. Research Questions To what extent has participation in the GCC courses: strengthened the teachers’ knowledge of the science of climate change? increased the teachers’ awareness of relevant, available NASA resources? led to actual integration of NASA data and resources into teachers’ classroom instruction?

11. Research Questions (con.) To what extent: has participation in the course fostered interdisciplinary approaches to GCCE? have course participants adopted effective STEM teaching techniques?

12. Research Design: Qualitative and Quantitative Methods Data collection includes: Pre and post assessment Online surveys: resource awareness and classroom practices Classroom observations Interviews Reports: Summative Evaluation Report Case Studies

13. Research Design Sample size: 200 teachers for the control and experimental groups Teachers will be recruited by 4 participating PBS stations Report published by 09/11

14. Questions? Melinda George (Principal Investigator) Senior Director [email_address] Elizabeth Wolzak (Project Lead) Senior Manager Online Content [email_address]