Visualizing the Chemistry of Climate Change

Purdue University, West Lafayette IN

Investigators

Abstract

Purdue University, in collaboration with the King's Centre for Visualization in Science (KCVS) at the King's University College, the American Chemical Society (ACS), and the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), is developing, testing, and disseminating a series of interactive web-based digital learning objects to help first-year undergraduate chemistry students visualize and understand the chemistry underlying global climate change. Developed in response to documented misconceptions, the interactive digital learning objects are helping to fill, through chemistry education, a systemic hole identified by urgent calls for climate science literacy. Recognizing that interdisciplinary understanding of complex systems is fundamental to understanding modern science, these digital learning objects also are providing "best-practice" resources to support chemistry instructors in adopting active-learning pedagogies that situate cognition in authentic science practice and globally important contexts. Intellectual Merit. Global climate change is one of the most pressing environmental challenges facing humanity. Developing new energy sources, mitigating the effects of climate change, and altering our energy consumption habits are challenges that will increasingly be met by the current generation of students. Colleges and universities across America and around the world play an important role in educating our youth about global climate change: its root causes, regional and global consequences, and how we can both adapt to and combat climate change. While the task of educating about climate change is critical, few credible, interactive, multimedia resources are currently available to help learners and educators negotiate the complex issues involved in understanding the scientific evidence for climate change. Many of the key underlying concepts require mental models built on a fundamental understanding of chemistry, yet connections to climate science and global climate change are largely missing in American first-year undergraduate chemistry courses for science majors. Can an online, interactive set of resources that helps learners visualize the chemistry underlying climate change: (a) exemplify science education for sustainability, (b) improve the understanding of climate change by both undergraduate students and faculty members, and (c) provide resources to support pedagogical reform? This project explores these questions by developing a series of online digital learning objects and examining the efficacy of these tools by measuring changes in understanding by undergraduate students about both climate change and core chemistry concepts taught through climate change science. The project also is producing a tested inventory of climate change concepts for use in further research. Broader Impact. These digital learning objects are being implemented and evaluated at several universities and are being disseminated to American colleges and university chemistry departments for further evaluation and implementation through existing ACS networks. The three co-PIs for this proposal lead a partnership under the umbrella of IUPAC, involving UNESCO, RSC, ACS, and members of the African and Asian Federations of Chemistry Societies, to disseminate tested climate change science materials as a contribution to the UN International Year of Chemistry (2011) and UNESCO's Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, 2005-2014. These digital learning objects are being made available to several portals for climate change science education, including the new UNESCO global clearing house on climate change education.