Adapting Science Teaching in Regions Impacted by Climate Change

This project will use PL, reflective interviews, and observation of science teaching to explore how teachers can learn about students’ lived experiences, and then create and implement adaptations that anchor science learning in the hazardous impact of climate change.

• Sponsor
  National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine
  $76,000

• Principal investigator
  Emily Adah Miller
  Assistant professor
  Department of Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies Education

• Active since
  January 2023

Abstract

We focus on how elementary teachers in Louisiana adapt existing science units to address local place-based experiences related to climate change and climate disaster. We view teachers as best-positioned to make adaptations that are meaningful to their students, honor students’ strengths, needs, and interests, and address inequities that arise in their local contexts.

We will use PL, reflective interviews, and observation of science teaching to explore how teachers can learn about students’ lived experiences, and then create and implement adaptations that anchor science learning in the hazardous impact of climate change (i.e., flooding, changing populations of sea animals and plants, hurricanes). We ask if these contexts can elicit and deepen young students’ emerging understandings of climate justice.

Finally, we will learn how engaging in the adaptation process supports teachers’ ongoing learning about their own instruction and agency to make decisions that support integration of science learning with climate change and climate justice in their classrooms.