Inside Education 426, Mark Windschitl on Teaching the Science of Climate Change (12-12-22)

Presented and produced by Seán Delaney

On this podcast I spoke to Professor Mark Windschitl from the University of Washington about teaching science and especially the science of climate change. As usual with these podcasts we covered a wide range of topics, including the following:

• What core practices are in teacher education (e.g. teachers need to elicit ideas students already have about the topic being taught).


• Why, although important, there is much more to teaching than core practices, such as developing respectful and trusting relationships with students.


• As teachers gain experience, they add nuance and flexibility to the core practices.


• What ambitious science teaching is: willingness to constantly improve one’s practice, to take risks to improve their practice and to base changes on students’ response to their teaching.


• The need for a teacher pursuing ambitious science teaching to understand topics (e.g. the greenhouse effect) in great depth, with flexibility, and connected to children’s everyday lives.


• The biggest ideas in biology that can be taught in a second-level school setting (e.g. how ecosystems function in the world).


• Trees extend their roots out to other trees and can cause chemical changes in other trees.


• Selecting candidates for teaching science and engaging in ambitious science teaching


• How the impact of testing in schools shapes the curriculum.


• The importance of academically productive discourse in the classroom about science ideas. Productive talk in a classroom is a process of sense-making and meaning making.


• The need for teachers to have models of ambitious science teaching that is relevant to the setting in which they teach.


• How to teach children the science of climate change without elevating eco-anxiety.


• Why solutions need to be threaded into the teaching of climate change


• The importance of understanding the greenhouse effect and why understanding that is not enough (the need to know about ecosystems, the oceans, the cryosphere – the frozen parts of the earth, and tipping points)


• The scale of climate change phenomena


• The idea of “carbon footprint” was introduced by a petroleum company (BP)


• What schools can do to mitigate the effects of climate change (e.g. making Prom night – the Debs – greener)


• Plastics pollution is different to climate change but both are connected in many students’ minds


• Students being exposed to sceptical points of view in some areas. Although such perspectives need to be managed carefully, sceptical views might not be as big a problem as we would expect. It may help to focus on the science of the greenhouse effect.


• The challenge of beef production as part of the climate change discussion


• The difficulty of conveying the scale of climate change


• Finding and evaluating climate change data – the challenge of media literacy. Among the known reputable outlets he identifies are: NASA, NOAA, WHO, and the UN.


• The importance of having a reason when sharing data about climate change.


• Assessing students’ knowledge of climate change


• How he became interested in education research


• How he conducts his research to find out how novice teachers become “well-started beginners”


• Helping novice teachers use agency to move beyond reproducing someone else’s teaching


• How he finds time to write – bringing a notebook with him when going out for a stroll and doing 14 versions of an article before it’s ready for publication


• Who research in education is for and how does it influence practice in education? Is it through instructional coaches? School leaders?


• Having children do well-structured work in small groups (that is equitable and rigorous) in class, at least part of the time, is hugely beneficial for their learning.


• Productive academic discourse in science is difficult to find in classrooms in the Unites States.


• Another research question is why technology failed to deliver for education during COVID


• Why schools and the communities around them should have porous boundaries


• The value of a teacher sharing (a) the kind of science they’re interested in (b) something about their family and (c) a hobby they have with their class in order to decrease the psychological difference between the teacher and their students.


• He refers to the book Teaching and its predicaments by David Cohen.