Activities to promote conceptual change about global warming

Climate of concern – a search for effective strategies for teaching children about global warming

Taber, F., & Taylor, N. (2009). Climate of concern – a search for effective strategies for teaching children about global warming. International Journal of Environmental & Science Education. 4(2), 97–116.

The purpose of Taber’s and Taylor’s article (2009) was to explore the intuitive ideas that primary students have about global warming, and to then determine if teacher interventions can improve students understanding of global warming. Summary of 8 Week Lesson that was proposed in this article included a variety of interesting and concrete activities from students’ daily lives to encourage them to understand the concept global warming in their real life contexts and activities.

• Introduce format of 8 week lesson, introduce class poster on steps to reduce global warming. Students gather qualitative data, key concepts and new terminology are introduced. The theme of the poster is “Steps we can take to help reduce global warming” (p. 115).  Students also read the futuristic story “Bushfire” to foster student engagement.
• Experiment modelling of the greenhouse effect.  Discussion of sources of greenhouse gases.  Activity on use of Electrical Appliances in homes.
• Students researched renewable and nonrenewable energy sources in small groups and compare their effectiveness and emissions.
• Students did experiments that model the effects of melting ice in the Arctic and Antarctic on sea levels. The experiment involved placing a large ice cube in a container of water. The volume of water was recorded when the ice is placed in the water, and then compared with the volume of water once the ice melts.
• Discussions focusing on students’ initial ideas about global warming, and filling in of tables with correct information about this scientific model.
• Hands on learning on the effects of insulation using modeling. Students experiment on the effects of using home insulation, window covering, and home orientation on energy efficiency.
• Outing to an energy efficient display home.  Discussion of features that reduce energy consumption. Can you find a few examples of energy efficient homes online and insert the links here.  You can tell reader to incorporate virtual tours in their lessons on global warming.
• Students do an energy audit to measure how energy can be used more efficiently at home and at school. To do this, students measured the energy consumption of a variety of appliances to determine ways of improving energy efficiency at home and at school.
• Students used an online ecological footprint calculator, and then discuss the impact on global warming. Students refer to the classroom poster they constructed.

In this lesson, evaluation involved a pre and post test. Taber and Taylor (2009) found that although there was no dramatic improvement in knowledge, that the number of misconceptions was fewer. The study found that students tended to group all environmental issues as one (global warming, rising sea levels, air and water pollution).  Improvements were found in student understanding of global warming.

Activities to promote systems thinking through inquiry-based approaches to teaching science

Learning by conceptual modeling – changes in knowledge structure and content.

Kitek A., Poppe M., Stelzhammer M., Muhar S., & Bredeweg B. (2013). Learning by conceptual modeling – changes in knowledge structure and content. IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies, 6(3), 217–227.

Kitek and colleagues (2013) proposed to assess the impact of the DynaLearn interactive learning environment (ILE) on student acquisition of conceptual knowledge of how and why environmental systems behave as they do.  The ILE engages learners in modeling to improve understanding of how systems work.  Two systems were studied, with the following questions:

• How does the production of wind energy effect fish populations?
• How does nuclear radiation affect the environment and humans?

DynaLearn allows students to explore three representations:

• Graphs of system states of behaviour (example: concept maps showing the relationship between renewable energy forms and fish ecology).
• Magnitude and direction of change, which takes into account direct influences of a system, than can be either positive or negative (the effect of plutonium on the environment).
• A dependency graph (for example,  the  rate of uptake of an iodine pill to reduce the uptake of radioactive iodine which could reduce the risk of getting thyroid cancer.

Students worked on assignments in conjunction with the DynaLearn software for two three-day sessions. DynaLearn induced causal and interlinked understanding of environmental systems.  An example how to reduce the negative effects of radioactive iodine uptake upon the thyroid.

Activities to promote conceptual change through various text structures

Reading about energy: The effects of text structure in science learning and conceptual change

Diakidoy, I., Kendeou P., & Ioannides C. (2003). Reading about energy: The effects of text structure in science learning and conceptual change. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 28, 335–356.

Diakidoy and colleagues (2003) compares science learning using refutational texts (texts where misconceptions are stated and then explicitly refuted) compared to learning using expository texts (texts where the primary function is to inform. They are characterized by large amounts of unfamiliar information). The study investigated how acquisition of the concept of energy differed between sixth-grade students using the two types of texts.  The refutational text group outperformed the expositiory text group in the acquisition of counterintuitive science concepts, with an emphasis on the distinctions between the concepts of force and energy. Students displayed a higher ability to verbally distinguish the difference between energy and force in conversational settings.

Material required for this lesson is refutational texts focusing on energy and force. Evaluation consisted of a pen and paper test to assess the acquisition of the instructed concepts (energy: forms, transformations & sources).

A number of probing questions were used by the researchers to elicit students’ intuitive conceptions about energy, which other teachers could also use in their lessons on force and energy, such as what is energy? What is involved in lifting an object (force or energy)? How is energy used and replenished? What can we understand by using the concept of energy? Can we store the energy stored in wood or oil elsewhere? “What produces more energy: a fireplace or a lamp?”, “Do different foods have different amounts of energy?”

Two identical cars are traveling on the highway. Car A is moving faster than Car B. Which car has more energy?