Infuse your science course with green learning!

1. Infuse yourscience coursewith green learning! • James H. Wandersee Louisiana State University • Renee M. Clary Mississippi State University EarthScholars Research Group™ http://EarthScholars.com

2. OurownGreen LearningMotto “Tread lightly upon the Earth.” IMAGE CREDIT: http://i.treehugger.com/files/th_images/parkwheel.jpg

3. Why do Students like Green Learning? • The future is where they will live. • Therefore, all students can be moved to care about the Earth. • They grasp that they need to master the knowledge and skills needed to solve the global environmental problems we face. • They like being role models for adults in conserving resources, promoting a sustainable lifestyle, and protecting Planet Earth. • They wonder: How can we have a green future or a green economy without green learning? Who will teach us that? • Why not YOU?

4. Teaching science in green-infused ways Incorporate environmental themes and data into science classes to show students the applicability of science in everyday life Use news stories to connect global issues to your local environment and your subject Get them active! Assess the health of a local stream, or perform an audit of your school’s energy consumption and recommend improvements. Connect your course to the Earth Co-construct other timely ways to incorporate environmental themes into science lessons.

5. Green Checklists & Pledges

6. Teach them Bloom’s Taxonomy Emphasize learning, not grades

7. Create green task forces • In each of your classes, students can: • Walk around and look for course-related opportunities for green improvements in their classroom, school, and community • Focus on addressing one problem at a time • Provide scientifically based recommendations resources, and green science education to schoolmates, parents, teachers, and the administration • Operate a greenstudent suggestion box: • Helps build engagement, generates great ideas • Helps set priorities among the problems they face

8. Adopt an environmental focus(here is one web-sourced thinking starter)

9. Teach them our class-based precautionary approach • Use as a foundation for careful environmental decision making • Its slogan is: “Better safe than sorry!” STEPS • Take anticipatory action • Assess alternatives • Exercise democracy • Choose the safest solution

10. Some favorable outcomes • Green schools empower kids to make a difference • Green schools teach them environmental and health values and habits that will stay with them for a lifetime • Research studies show—for example-- that "daylighting" (increasing the amount of daylight in a building), improving indoor air quality, and hands-on, experiential environmental curricula are all linked to higher test scores

11. http://www.ecowalkthetalk.com

12. Thinking, feeling, acting…

13. Free Video Course that we’ve used: • The Habitable Planet is a multimedia course consisting of 13 units. Each unit is composed of a 30-minute video and an online text chapter. • The web site acts as a home base to begin study, a place to organize the course materials. It provides access to all the course components plus additional resources, which include: • 5 interactive lab activities; • Visuals: animations and images used in the course; • Harvard University environmental scientist biographies, • Edited transcripts from each of the video case study interviews • Web site URL: http://www.learner.org/channel/courses/envsci/index.html

14. The Global Education Project’sEarth Wall Chart is “Anthropocene-Panoramic” • Title: Earth: A Graphic Look at the State of the World. • 100 Full-Color Graphs and Data Maps • “A Chapter’s Worth of Knowledge in Each Graphic” • Non-Partisan Information • 27" by 36" Wall Chart (folded or laminated) http://www.theglobaleducationproject.org

15. Each year since global measurements of CO2began, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased. TIME SERIES OF STATES

16. The Chart Intervention:Research Findings The majority of students: • (a) increased their personal knowledge of the distribution and limits of the Earth's resources [88%]; • (b) shifted their knowledge and interest horizons from regional or national to global [72%]; • (c) recalibrated their own professed personal consumption patterns to accommodate their new understandings of global resource realities [65%]; • (d) expressed intent to reduce their ecological footprints [68%]; • (e) confided that the chart had impacted their personal discourse positions on Earth-related issues, and heightened the feeling that they were familiar and necessary stewards of Planet Earth [81%].

17. Infusing environmental topics • Teach the science first • Teach with data • Use active learning techniques • Emphasize student-generated problems • Use controversy and topics with incomplete evidence constructively • Use role-playing to protect students • Assure “all is not gloom and doom” • Lead by example, but don't sermonize

18. AN EXAMPLE OF INFUSION The Coal Cycle:Science and Sustainability Renee M. Clary James H. Wandersee Mississippi State University Louisiana State University http: EarthScholars.com

19. Multipurpose COAL! • Coal fueled the Industrial Revolution, and changed the course of human history • . . . and its history is OLDER than that recorded by humans! http://www.wvencyclopedia.org/assets/ 0000/7761/mine_safety2_up_medium.jpg?1276869681

20. A Coal Cycle Plants, deposition Recovery as Fossil Fuel Lithification Consumption as an Energy Source CO2 in the atmosphere

21. Coal Cycle • A subset of the Carbon Cycle: • Photosynthesizing plants fixed carbon • Plants provide organic source • Carbon returned to atmosphere as plants decayed • Some plants were buried and sequestered carbon

22. Coal: The Origins • Biochemical sedimentary rock • Plant accumulation & compaction yield PEAT • PEAT is altered and compressed to LIGNITE • Additional alteration yields BITUMINOUS COAL • Metamorphosed coal is ANTHRACITE

23. Coal: The Origins • Processes require MILLIONS of years • Changing sea levels • Rising sea levels drowned vegetation in swamps. • Cyclothems record repeating marine and non-marine strata interbedded with coal http://earth.usc.edu/~stott/Catalina /images/paleoclimate/cyclothem.jpg

24. Coal: The Origins • These conditions existed many times in Earth’s history! United States Geological Survey

25. Coal and the Hydrosphere • Plants were part of a swamp • Transgressing and regressing seas formed coal-containing cyclothems • Water is also used in coal extraction process (and can become polluted)

26. Coal and the Lithosphere • Coal mining impacts Earth’s surface • Large quantities of rock material removed http://www.trunity.net/files/147701_147800/147775/strip_coal_mining.jpg

27. Coal and the Atmosphere • Coal mining impacts atmosphere • Dust enters atmosphere, and is linked to some diseases • -Methane is released during mining operations http://images.morris.com/images/juneau/mdControlled/ cms/2009/11/11/515209602.jpg

28. Coal Cycle in the Classroom • The Coal Cycle can address concepts in biology, ecology, geology, chemistry . . • . . .plus environmental stewardship and climate change

29. The Coal Controversy

30. Rationale for Teaching Legitimate Scientific Controversies • Recent research (Clark & Mayer, 2002) on learning indicates that including structured controversial topics in a course can heighten student interest, improve attention, and deepen understanding of the subject. • Almost every area we teach in the sciences has its scientifically controversial environmental topics, but many courses fail to introduce students to them for the sake of acceleration and expediency.

31. The Coal Cycle • Resources are available for teachers’ classroom use • from BOTH proponents and opponents of coal-fueled power • TEACHERS SHOULD PREVIEW RESOURCE MATERIALS BEFORE CLASSROOM USE http://www.grist.org/phpThumb/phpThumb.php?src=http://www.grist.org/i/assets/2/coal-protest-sign-focus-the-nation.jpg&w=307 http://www.celsias.com/media/uploads/admin/clean-coal-cool.jpg

32. Mining Dilemma • Muffin Mining Activity • Retrieve blueberries without impacting muffin’s shape • Coal Mining Calamity • Retrieve bandanas within book pile without affecting pile • Your Carbon Footprint • Your place on the grid! Home Energy (65.8%) Home Energy (65.8%) Your Behavior Breakdown Driving & Flying (26.6%) Recycling & Waste (2.2%) Food & Diet (5.3%) Your Behavior Breakdown Driving & Flying (26.6%) Recycling & Waste (2.2%) Food & Diet (5.3%)

33. The Coal Cycle • Coal Cycle provides a specific example to investigate the carbon cycle • Our research supported the use of the Coal Cycle to incorporate Earth System Science in the classroom http://www.gly.bris.ac.uk/www/ess/img/questpix.jpg

34. The Coal Cycle • Our research supports the Coal Cycle as a geobiological portal through which students study scientific concepts, and become environmentally conscious of human impact on our planet. http://www.metropolismag.com/webimages/2919/GlobalFootprintNetwork.jpg

35. Now Published! • Free resource through NSTA! • Connect the Spheres with the Coal Cycle Renee Clary and James Wandersee Science Scope, 34 (2) (October 2010), 20-29.

36. We’ve found that: Any science course can be taught using environmental applications and promoting environmental stewardship. Why do so? Motivated students are a joy to teach!