Environmental Literacy Research Group

Environmental Literacy
Research Group
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE LITERACY
Lindsey Mohan
Important Contributors: Charles W. Anderson, Blakely Tsurusaki, Kristin Gunckel, Beth Covitt, Hui Jin,
Jing Chen, Hasan Abdel-Kareem, Hsin-Yuan Chen, Kennedy Onyancha, Hamin Baek, Chris Wilson,
Laurel Hartley, Brooke Wilke, Edna Tan, Josephine Zesaguli, Rebecca Dudek, Ajay Sharma, In-Young
Cho, John Locke, Ed Smith, and Jim Gallagher from Michigan State University, Phil Piety from University
of Michigan, and Mark Wilson, Karen Draney, Yong-Sang Lee, and Jinnie Choi from University of
California-Berkeley.
MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY

This research is supported in part by three grants from the
National Science Foundation: Developing a research-based
learning progression for the role of carbon in environmental
systems (REC 0529636), the Center for Curriculum Materials in
Science (ESI-0227557) and Long-term Ecological Research in
Row-crop Agriculture (DEB 0423627. Any opinions, findings,
and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material
are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views
of the National Science Foundation.
CCMS
Research Partners:
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INTRODUCTION and BACKGROUND

MOTIVATION FOR OUR WORK
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 Science education: Critiques of

standards
 Need to consider changing needs for

citizens’ knowledge
 Need to reduce and reorganize standards/
benchmarks around “big ideas”
 Need to consider advances in educational
research (including learning progressions)
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standards
 Science: Interdisciplinary Research on

Coupled Human and Natural Systems
Interdisciplinary Research on Coupled
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Human and Natural Systems
 Shift from individual disciplines

(ecology, geology, atmospheric science,
meteorology) to interdisciplinary fields
(environmental science, earth systems
science)
 Shift from retrospective (reconstructing

the past) to prospective (projecting the
future)
 Shift from focus on natural systems to

coupled human and natural systems
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Socio-Ecological Systems
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Current Science Curriculum

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standards
 Science: Interdisciplinary Research on

Coupled Human and Natural Systems
 Responsible Citizenship: Increasing

environmental responsibility
RESPONSIBLE CITIZENSHIP and
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE LITERACY Environmental Literacy
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 Environmental science literacy is the ability to

 Enact personal agency on environmental issues
 Understand and evaluate arguments among experts
 Reconcile actions or policies with values
 Citizens need to consider environmental consequences or

sustainability in concert with other democratic values:
freedom, opportunity, justice
 Actions and decisions in multiple roles that all citizens play:

learners, consumers, voters, workers, volunteers, and
advocates
Making Sense of Science in Popular
Media and Policy Reports Environmental Literacy
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Example: The IPCC report for Policymakers

“For the next two decades a warming of about 0.2°C per decade is
projected for a range of emission scenarios. Even if the
concentrations of all GHGs [greenhouse gases] and aerosols had
been kept constant at year 2000 levels, a further warming of about
0.1°C per decade would be expected. Afterwards, temperature
projections increasingly depend on specific emission scenarios.
{3.2} (IPCC, 2007, p. 6)”
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Example: The Inconvenient Truth

“In Antarctica, measurements of CO2 concentrations and temperatures go back
650,000 years…The blue line below charts CO2 concentrations over this
period….The gray line shows the world average temperature over the same
650,000 years…Here is an important point. If my classmate from the sixth
grade were to see this—you remember, the guy who asked about South
America and Africa—he would ask, “Did they ever fit together?”…The answer
from scientists would be, “Yes, they do fit together”...It’s a complicated
relationship, but the most important part of it is this: When there is more CO2 in
the atmosphere, the temperature increases because more heat from the Sun is
trapped inside.” (Gore, 2006, pp. 66-7)
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ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE LITERACY

FRAMEWORK

PRACTICES for ENVIRONMENTAL
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SCIENCE LITERACY
1. Inquiry: Learning from experience
 Practical and scientific inquiry
 Developing arguments from evidence
PRACTICES for ENVIRONMENTAL
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SCIENCE LITERACY
1. Inquiry: Learning from experience
 Practical and scientific inquiry
 Developing arguments from evidence
2. Scientific accounts and application

 Applying fundamental principles to processes in
systems
 Using scientific models and patterns to explain and
predict
3. Using scientific reasoning in responsible

citizenship
 Enacting personal agency on environmental issues
 Reconciling actions or policies with values
Environmental Literacy Practice 2: Science Accounts & Application
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Carbon: Processes that generate, transform and

oxidize organic carbon
• photosynthesis (plant growth), biosynthesis (plant and animal growth),
cellular respiration (weight loss, movement, decay), combustion
(burning), global climate change
Water: Processes that move and redistribute water

or alter water composition
• infiltration, transpiration, evaporation, condensation, precipitation,
groundwater pumping, water diversions, erosion, dissolution, point &
non-point source pollution, filtration, wetlands chemistry, water treatment
processes
Biodiversity: Processes that create, sustain, or

reduce biodiversity
• mutation, sexual recombination, colonization by new species, life cycles,
reproduction, relationships among individuals & among populations with
different niches, survival strategies, natural selection, reduction of
niches/habitats by human, invasive species
CARBON CYCLING
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Importance of Carbon Cycling

• Human are altering global carbon cycling and atmospheric
CO2 levels in unprecedented ways
• With respect to the “energy crisis” and “global warming”, we
are asking citizens to make decisions (on both personal and
political levels) that have profound consequences for the
future of our country and the global environment
The burden on science/geography education:

• Citizens need to understand seemingly disparate events, such as
how sea ice available to polar bears in the Artic is connected to
processes inside leaf cells in the Amazon, and American using
gasoline in their cars and plugging in air conditioners
• Making sense of processes that influence the flow of carbon
within and between systems is necessary to make these
connections
CARBON CYCLE LOOP DIAGRAM
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CARBON CYCLE FRAMEWORK
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CARBON CYCLE FRAMEWORK
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CARBON CYCLE ASSESSMENTS
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CARBON CYCLE ASSESSMENTS
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WATER CYCLING
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The Importance of Water Cycling

• Freshwater is hugely important to our lifestyles, for both
personal use and for consumer products
• Humans are altering the flow and distribution of freshwater
• The abundance and quality of freshwater available to people
has major environmental, economic and political
consequences

• Students need to know where water comes from and where
it goes; they need to be able to trace water, and materials
found in water, through systems
• They need to know about human systems that alter water
distribution and composition, and consequences of those
alterations.
WATER CYCLING LOOP DIAGRAM
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WATER CYCLING FRAMEWORK
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WATER CYCLING FRAMEWORK
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WATER CYCLING ASSESSMENTS
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BIODIVERSITY
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The Importance of Biodiversity

• Biodiversity involves organisms living through their life cycles
(growth and reproduction) within multiple relationships
defined by their niches and habitats, and being subject to
selection.
• Humans are altering biodiversity through domestication, land
management, pesticides (e.g., agriculture), etc., making
populations and communities less diverse and potentially
less stable.
The burden on science education:

• School science should teach accounts of biodiversity at
multiple scales: life cycles (changes in individuals over
time), evolution (changes in populations over time), and
succession (changes in ecosystems over time),
connecting these to human activities that alter changes
over time.
BIODIVERSITY LOOP DIAGRAM
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BIODIVERSITY FRAMEWORK
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BIODIVERSITY FRAMEWORK
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BIODIVERSITY ASSESSMENTS
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BIODIVERSITY ASSESSMENTS
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CITIZENSHIP
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Importance of Citizenship
• Human make decisions in public and private roles: publicly as
voters, advocates, volunteers etc, and privately as consumers,
learners, workers, etc.
• In democratic societies, such as the US, citizens have the power
to make choices with potentially profound consequences for
local and global environments.

• School science can help prepare students to understand,
navigate, and make decisions within complex socio-ecological
systems
• School science needs to “blur” traditional boundaries between
scientific disciplines and between science and social studies
(such as geography, sociology, economics, etc), so that
citizenship issues are addressed alongside science content.
CITIZENSHIP
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Curriculum with Focus on Students will be Consumers,

Environmental Literacy Voters, Workers, Volunteers,
Advocates & Learners
CITIZENSHIP
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1. Who do you trust? (Reasoning about SOURCES of

information) Citizens have access to multiple sources of
information, making different and sometimes contradictory
claims. How do students evaluate the credibility of different
sources.
2. What’s the evidence? (Reasoning about ARGUMENTS or

positions and supporting evidence) Some sources of
information give citizens access to scientific evidence in
various forms and media and arguments based on that
evidence. How do students use evidence to support their
arguments?
3. What should we do? (Reasoning about what course of

action or POSITION to take) Citizens have opportunities to
explore different alternatives and to choose or identify their
own course of action or position. How do they make sense
of the different positions and possible consequences? How
do they assess the desirability of different positions?
CITIZENSHIP
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Global Perception of World

Perceptions activate “environmental” or other schemas
Local Framing of Self and Situation

Who Am I? Initial Perception/Framing of
Perception of Situation
personal identity, Based on cultural models (e.g., human
roles, agency consumption and/or environmental impact
as reasons for decisions/actions
Deciding about an Issue and/or Action

Perception leads to Perception leads to conscious decisions process
immediate decision without involving consideration of:
conscious thought about Who do I trust?
environmental impacts. What is the evidence?
Understanding current knowledge and seeking
new information.
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QUESTIONS?
More information, such as papers about our frameworks

and learning progressions, assessments, drafts of teaching
materials, etc., can be found on our project website:
http://edr1.educ.msu.edu/EnvironmentalLit/index.htm

Environmental Literacy Research Group

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Environmental Literacy

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE LITERACY

MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY

INTRODUCTION and BACKGROUND

MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY

 Science education: Critiques of

 Need to consider changing needs for

 Science education: Critiques of

 Science: Interdisciplinary Research on

 Shift from individual disciplines

 Shift from retrospective (reconstructing

 Shift from focus on natural systems to

Current Science Curriculum

 Science education: Critiques of

 Science: Interdisciplinary Research on

 Responsible Citizenship: Increasing

 Environmental science literacy is the ability to

 Citizens need to consider environmental consequences or

 Actions and decisions in multiple roles that all citizens play:

Example: The IPCC report for Policymakers

Example: The Inconvenient Truth

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE LITERACY

MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY

2. Scientific accounts and application

3. Using scientific reasoning in responsible

Carbon: Processes that generate, transform and

Water: Processes that move and redistribute water

Biodiversity: Processes that create, sustain, or

Importance of Carbon Cycling

The burden on science/geography education:

The Importance of Water Cycling

The burden on science/geography education:

The Importance of Biodiversity

The burden on science education:

The burden on science/geography education:

Curriculum with Focus on Students will be Consumers,

1. Who do you trust? (Reasoning about SOURCES of

2. What’s the evidence? (Reasoning about ARGUMENTS or

3. What should we do? (Reasoning about what course of

Global Perception of World

Local Framing of Self and Situation

Deciding about an Issue and/or Action

More information, such as papers about our frameworks

MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY

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