MbShea@PWP@English@UMCP

Abstract:
This curriculum guide will lead students and teachers through a lesson on climate change and science communication. The first part will be a piece of reading for the students on the two topics. I will introduce climate change as it pertains to current events (NYT Article on Paris Agreement withdrawal). Then I will explain the history of climate change research in order to show that climate change has only recently become politicized (Arrhenius, Keeling). Then we will look at current evidence of climate change, and refute some common misconceptions about it (from NASA and the IPCC). Finally, we will look at some studies that model potential effects and economic costs of climate change in a variety of scenarios. We will discuss the limitations of these models and predictions, as well as brainstorm a list of things that we still don’t know about climate change. Finally, we will transition to the topic of science communication and the difficulties of presenting such a complex, interdisciplinary issue to the world. That will allow us to transition into talking about three major science communicators: Bill Nye, Katharine Hayhoe, and Elizabeth Kolbert.
For the teacher, resources for teaching about climate change will be provided (from NOAA and NASA). I will also provide discussion questions about limitations of climate change knowledge and the reasons why public opinion is divided on this topic. I will also provide an annotated bibliography of videos to show students from Bill Nye and Katharine Hayhoe and give some recommended readings (and tweets) from Elizabeth Kolbert.

Reader response:
Student: I don’t care about climate change. It’s not relevant to my life, and anyway my grandfather says climate change is a hoax that people made up to prevent America from being able to compete industrially with China. The Paris Agreement will only limit us. Wait, climate change was thought of before we were even competing with China’s industry? 1896 is so long ago…I don’t even think climate change was a term back then. But people still observed these things. Interesting. Huh. These graphs are pretty clear. Scientists probably made them up because someone paid them to say these things. These models are way too overdramatic, anyway. Oh wait, that model is a conservative model of sea level rise, and it still looks pretty bad… Science communication? How is this relevant? Well, I guess a lot of what I know about science doesn’t come from reading primary sources. It mostly comes from my teachers, and people I see on TV, and when we watch Bill Nye the Science Guy in class. That show used to be great, but now it’s annoying when we watch it in class because it’s so condescending. Oh hey, a video of Bill Nye talking like he’s talking to adults rather than third-graders. He seems pretty convinced about this, but what does he know, really? This Katharine Hayhoe lady has a lot of expertise in this kind of thing…so does this Elizabeth Kolbert person. Hmm. Maybe I can show one of these videos to my grandfather next time he brings this up.

V, you have a good understanding of your difficult reader. One addition argument for these people is the sheer cost of energy. Efficiency, renewables (over time), demand measures -- can reduce carbon loading into atmosphere AND SAVE MONEY (industry and consumers).

Be sure to include visuals, too. Begin with a carbon cycle image that show the fluxes, and then show how the shift toward the atmosphere is climate disruptive.

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/climate-change-deniers-vs-the-consensus/

https://xkcd.com/1732/

And, a great first person piece with visuals here:
https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2009/dec/18/information-beautiful-climate-change-sceptics-copenhagen-summit