Collaborative Research: Building Global Climate Change Literacy through Analogical Reasoning

Michigan State University, East Lansing MI

Investigators

Abstract

Earth Systems Science (40) This project is creating new learning materials and strategies to foster the ability of students to reason by analogy about global climate change and is assessing student ability to use analogies to make and evaluate claims about global climate change. The PIs are testing the hypothesis that we can dramatically improve the climate change literacy of non-science majors through explicit instruction about analogical reasoning in a general education-science course that focuses on Global Change. The project is focusing on analogical reasoning because 1) analogical reasoning is central in higher-level learning, 2) scientists routinely use analogies to generate hypotheses and to solve research problems, and 3) scientists commonly use analogies to convey information about complex systems responsible for global climate change. The PIs are testing their hypothesis using matched experimental and control classes taught by the same instructor. They are assessing the ability of students to generate causal explanations of processes that drive global change through a mixed methods approach. The PIs are developing new instructional materials and assessment instruments based on the understanding of analogical reasoning by cognitive scientists. In particular, the PIs are helping students to understand analogies and are also improving their analogical reasoning by focusing on five dimensions of analogical reasoning suggested by decades of research: retrieval, mapping, evaluation, abstraction and re-representation. By analyzing the efficacy of their approach, the PIs are developing a new, detailed model of how best to teach analogical reasoning specifically within the context of improving climate change literacy.