2011 - Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences ...

EDUCATION AND OUTREACH
n Climate Science Education
n Graduate Student Education
n Sun-Earth Connections
The CIRES Education and Outreach (EO) group is
active across the spectrum of geosciences education,
including teacher and scientist professional development,
digital learning resources and courses, graduate student
fellowships and more.
Climate Science Education
CIRES and NOAA climate scientists make our climateeducation
projects possible. CIRES climate scientists
partner with CIRES Education and Outreach as part of
their research projects; contribute to education projects
as presenters, reviewers and learning-resource providers;
and star in scientific video clips. This involvement
by scientists helps teachers to have confidence that the
resources provided by CIRES EO are scientifically sound
and up-to-date.
To provide students with accurate information about
climate and energy science,
educators require scientifically
and pedagogically
robust teaching materials.
To address this need, the
Climate Literacy and Energy
Awareness Network
(CLEAN) has launched a
new peer-reviewed digital
collection as part of the
National Science Digital
Library (NSDL). The CLEAN
Pathways project features
teaching materials centered
on climate and energy science
for grades 6 through
16. As an NSDL Pathways
project, CLEAN makes climate
and energy education
resources more visible and
useful for educators. Each
featured teaching resource
has undergone a rigorous
review process and provides
expert teaching tips on how
to implement the resource in
the classroom. All materials
are aligned with the Benchmarks for Science Literacy and
the Essential Principles of Climate Science. The CLEAN
user community is being built through a series of virtual
workshops and webinars and through social media.
CLEAN is funded by grants from the National Science
72 CIRES Annual Report 2011
“The ICEE workshop last
June helped me to gain
the knowledge (and courage)
to develop my climate
literacy class, which
was part of our school’s
21st Century Learners
program. Good news, no
parents called to protest
the curriculum and I’ve
now got the “green light”
from admin to teach the
class each quarter next
year (so essentially all 6th
graders in our school will
get a head start on being
climate literate citizens).”
ICEE teacher on the ICEE forum
(iceeonline.org/forum)
Erin Pierson and David Ward learn how to test water quality during the
COSEE West–Colorado Collaborative Summer Institute.
Foundation (NSF). Learn more at cleanet.org.
The Inspiring Climate Education Excellence (ICEE)
project, funded through a NASA Global Climate Change
Education grant, complements CLEAN as a professional
development program for science educators. ICEE supports
teachers to use best-practices teaching strategies in
their climate-science instruction, including knowing how
to integrate solutions into instruction and how to forestall
controversy. Teachers who attended a professional
development workshop through ICEE demonstrated a
deeper understanding of climate-science concepts and
better agreement with scientific statements about climate
change, and they have implemented climate and energy
content in their classrooms. Since 70 percent of educators
who teach climate and energy topics in the classroom use