NCSEteach

Here's a pretty cool graphic.

www.climate-lab-book.ac.uk

Dear Prospective EVO TAP Teachers,

Thank you for your interest in being a part of this exciting professional development opportunity! By participating in the EVO TAP workshop and project, you will help expand effective teaching of evolution, strengthen the understanding of evolution, and inoculate students and peers across the country against misinformation and misconceptions.

Overview

This is a multi-phase project that will take place in three steps:

Bring together the best teachers from around the country. Teachers who are already doing a great job teaching evolution in their classrooms through strong content knowledge and pedagogical skills, and who are confronting opposition from their communities.

Develop a unit of five lessons focused on addressing key misconceptions about evolution, and field test the lessons in the teacher’s classrooms. This is the focus of this workshop. The unit will be developed by the teachers themselves from lesson templates designed by experts at NCSE, the University of California Museum of Paleontology, and Amanda Glaze.
Each teacher participating in this process and field testing the lessons will then create professional development opportunities for their district or wider area. Administrators from the teacher’s school or district will be included as workshop participants and then help facilitate the delivery of the second round of localized professional development.

If you accept this challenge, apply to be one of eight master teachers selected to be trained to become NCSE Teacher Ambassadors!

Being an NCSE Teacher Ambassador is not a short-term commitment or reward. We are looking to change the culture of how evolution is taught, and NCSE Teacher Ambassadors will be at the vanguard of this effort. We want teachers who are anxious and willing to develop the tools and relationships needed to effect sustainable transformational change in their schools and larger communities.

Pedagogy

Misconception-based learning is a powerful way to neutralize misinformation while improving science literacy. This approach involves explaining scientific concepts while directly refuting related misconceptions. Misconception-based learning results in greater and more long-lasting learning gains relative to standard lessons (McCuin et al., 2014). It increases student’s argumentative skills and awareness of the importance of evidence (Kuhn and Crowell, 2011), fosters critical thinking skills (Berland and Reiser, 2008), and provokes greater student interest (Manson et al., 2008).

This teaching approach also equips students with the tools and confidence to engage in conversations with family and friends about contentious topics such as evolution.

The lessons developed though this workshop be project-based, data-driven, and even place-based as much as possible. We want students to experience the evidence for evolution with the guidance of talented teachers. Evidence-based lessons have the potential to not only overcome embedded misconceptions, but to inoculate students against future misinformation.

Background

There is no scientific controversy about the basic facts of evolution or accomplishments of evolutionary theory, and yet evolution is often labeled as a “controversial” subject. Why? Because a vocal minority of people and special interests see evolution education as a threat to their personal worldview or priorities. At NCSE, our goal is to ensure that everyone has an opportunity to learn the science of evolution accurately, thoroughly, and uncompromisingly.

Evolution denial takes many forms. There is no single form of creationism and its history is longer than many expect. As a result, students or parents may come in with arguments that teachers are not familiar with or prepared to answer. Teachers who teach evolution face a number of challenges. One set of challenges comes from misunderstandings about evolution and/or the nature of science. For example, students may have difficulty in understanding basic concepts such as speciation or in grasping the immense scale of geological time. Another set of challenges comes from "outside" of science, that is, from creationist efforts to weaken (or even block) the teaching of evolution.

According to the National Science Board's 2002 study Science and Engineering Indicators, only one-third of Americans can adequately explain what it means to study something scientifically. As a nation, we are easy prey for those promoting pseudoscientific claims, and the National Science Board survey blames education and the media for this.

Elementary teachers spend significantly less time on science and social studies than on math and literacy activities (Pianta et al 2007). In a study of Science Education in Bay Area Elementary Schools, 22% of K-2 teachers and 10% of 3-5 teachers do not cover science at all and 59% feel under-prepared to teach science.

It is no wonder U.S. public acceptance of evolution is so low compared to other countries (Miller et al. 2006). Clearly one reason evolution is so easily rejected is because people are scientifically ill-informed. Hence, an excellent place to start is educating students about the nature of science, and more specifically, how to differentiate between science and non-science, pseudoscience and even bad science.

Challenges to teaching evolution are often rooted in misunderstandings of what "science" is. Modern science seeks to explain natural phenomena in natural terms. Supernatural explanations fall outside of the boundaries of science. Scientific knowledge requires observations and evidence, but is more than a collection of facts. Observations must be confirmed numerous times by independent observers before they are accepted as scientific facts. Scientific facts serve as the basis for making testable explanations, or hypotheses, about the natural world. Hypotheses are subjected to various kinds of testing and modified as required by the results. They are also modified as required when new observations are obtained.

Evolution has been subjected to scientific testing for over a century, and has been (and continues to be) consistently confirmed by evidence from a wide range of scientific fields.

We hope to see your application soon!

--

Sincerely,
Brad Hoge, Director of Teacher Support
NCSE

NCSEteach recommends John Mead's webinar: Meeting Naledi: The Discovery of our Newest Human Relative -

Meeting Naledi – The Discovery of Our Newest Human Relative If you've never used Adobe Connect, get a quick overview: http://www.adobe.com/products/adobeconnect.html Adobe, the Adobe logo, Acrobat and Adobe Connect are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries.

Dear Prospective TMEO Teachers,

Thank you for your interest in being a part of this exciting professional development opportunity! By participating in the TMEO workshop and project, you will help inoculate students and peers across the country against misinformation about climate change.

Background

In March 2017, the Heartland Institute began mailing unsolicited packets of climate science denial propaganda to tens of thousands of teachers across the United States. Heartland, a libertarian think-tank that has been active in casting doubt on the health risks of to***co as well as established climate science, claimed that it intended to send out up to 200,000 packets with the goal of reaching every science teacher in the country. The packets included a DVD and a booklet entitled “Why Scientists Disagree about Global Warming”, suggesting that teachers “use them in your classroom.” A misleading New York Times quote was featured on the outer envelope. In short, the goal of the packets was to encourage teachers actively to misinform their students about climate science. The National Center for Science Education (NCSE), immediately sprang into action to get accurate information to teachers that would both discourage them from using the packets themselves and give them detailed explanations of why the material was unacceptable for use in the science classroom. The flyers were designed to help teachers dissuade parents, administrators or colleagues who might be in favor of using the materials to "teach the controversy". The three flyers that NCSE developed were made available free on our website, distributed to our own network of 6,000 teachers, and widely disseminated by other organizations including the National Science Teachers Association. The National Center for Science Education was able to respond quickly because we have been active for over 30 years in ensuring that evolution is taught accurately and resisting efforts to introduce the non-scientific alternatives of creationism or intelligent design into science classrooms. In 2012, NCSE added climate change education to our mission, as similar efforts to require or encourage teachers to devote “equal time” to casting doubt on climate science were becoming more common. We have a long history of helping teachers cover topics that are societally, but not scientifically, contentious. When we began working on climate change education, one of the challenges was a dearth of information about which teachers, at what grade levels, and in which science courses, were covering the topic and how.

Accordingly, in 2015, NCSE, in collaboration with researchers at the Pennsylvania State University, carried out the first representative national survey of U.S. middle and high school science teachers to learn how climate change is actually being taught. The results were published in the journal Science in 2016 (Plutzer et al., 2016). Encouragingly, the survey found that climate change is being widely taught. On the other hand, the majority of teachers conceded that they have little formal training on climate science and were not especially confident in their content expertise. This lack of expertise was confirmed by the response to a question asking what percentage of climate scientists agrees that human activities are the main driver of climate change. The correct answer is an overwhelming 97%, but only 40% of teachers chose the correct survey option of 80%-100%. This worrying result suggests that science teachers, like so many others, have been affected by misinformation campaigns, such as those by the Heartland Institute, that falsely suggest that the reality of climate change is still in substantial scientific doubt.

The Heartland Institute’s mailing, beginning with its title, exploited precisely this widespread misconception. Knowing, as we did, that a great many teachers were themselves unaware of the depth of the scientific consensus, one of the flyers developed by NCSE explained exactly how the 97% consensus claim was arrived at, undergirded as it is by a wealth of evidence from several lines of research. Helping teachers overcome the prevalent misconceptions about what climate scientists know and how they know it is, however, only the first step. Ideally, teachers need tools to help their students recognize and overcome those misconceptions as well.

Pedagogy

Misconception-based learning is a powerful way to neutralize misinformation while improving science literacy (Bedford, 2010). This approach involves explaining scientific concepts while directly refuting related misconceptions. Misconception-based learning results in greater and more long-lasting learning gains relative to standard lessons (McCuin et al., 2014). It increases student’s argumentative skills and awareness of the importance of evidence (Kuhn and Crowell, 2011), fosters critical thinking skills (Berland and Reiser, 2008), and provokes greater student interest (Manson et al., 2008).

This teaching approach also equips students with the tools and confidence to engage in conversations with family and friends about contentious topics such as climate change.

Developing such a tool for teachers is the primary goal of this proposal. The broader impact of the project will be achieved by disseminating the field-tested tool to as many teachers as possible, in collaboration with NCSE, NOAA, and the Alliance for Climate Education (ACE).

Overview

This is a multi-phase project that will:

We have produced a unit of 5 unique lessons using the misconception-based learning approach developed by Dr. John Cook at GMU. These lessons address misconceptions identified in the Heartland packet, and include lessons on the scientific consensus on climate change, modelling, the geologic record of climate change, extreme weather events, and solutions and sustainability. All lessons are hands-on PBL, and utilize activities from the NOAA CLEAN interactive database. Lessons are also flexible so that the lessons can be adapted to local issues and data.

You will be one of 8 master teachers selected to be trained on these lessons, and to then deliver these lessons in your classrooms.

We will assess the impact of the lessons on specific student learning outcomes, and use this feedback to develop and conduct teacher training webinars in cooperation with ACE. These webinars will be marketed and distributed the nationally.

In addition to being a part of this effort, you will also have the opportunity to join a group of NCSE Ambassador Teachers to help expand the program in your area. Lessons will also be submitted to the CLEAN database, and you will be connected to the NOAA Planet Stewards program.

To learn more about the NOAA CLEAN database, go to https://cleanet.org/index.html.

To learn more about the NOAA Planet Stewards program, go to https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/planet-stewards/.

To learn more about NCSEteach, go to https://ncse.com/teach.

To learn more about ACE, go to https://acespace.org/.

We hope to see your application soon!

--

Sincerely,
Brad Hoge, Director of Teacher Support
NCSE

CLEAN A collection of ~700 free, ready-to-use resources rigorously reviewed by educators and scientists. Suitable for secondary through higher education classrooms. Browse by NGSS » Search the Collection » To ...

http://mailchi.mp/641d8793d787/webinars-994589

Register for the free CLEAN Webinar Series starting November 9 Join us for a series of free half-hour webinars to take your teaching about climate and energy to the next level.

From CLEAN Network

As you may know, NCA4 (volume II) was released for public comment on Friday, and USGCRP will be holding webinars to share information about this important review phase - please spread the word to your colleagues and networks:
THIS WEEK: Thurs., Nov. 9: 3:00pm EST
Sat., Nov. 18: 3:00pm EST
Wed., Dec. 6: 5:00pm EST
Tues., Jan. 16: 8:00pm EST
No registration is required. To access the webinar(s), please use the following call-in information:

Webinar link: https://icf.globalmeet.com/NCAProjectWebinar
US callers: (605) 475-5606
Passcode: 9663019548 #
Note: Phone numbers for other countries are available upon logging in to the webinar (clicking "Dial In" will provide a list of phone numbers for each country.)

These webinars will provide viewers with background on the NCA (which many of you have likely seen before), as well as guidance and instructions on how to use the Review & Comment system at review.globalchange.gov. In response to feedback on and lessons learned from the Regional Engagement Workshops, USGCRP is trying to reach a broad swath of folks by providing weekend and (for some folks) evening sessions, so thanks in advance for helping spread the word!

www-na1.globalmeet.com

International Observe the Moon Night Through a Native American Perspective
Event Date: Wednesday, November 8th
Where: You can watch this event by visiting our website on November 8th
Time: 10AM-11AM AKST |11AM-12PM PST |12PM-1PM MST |1PM-2PM CST | 2PM-3PM EST

On Oct. 28, 2017, events were held around the world to observe the moon. Native Americans have been observing the moon for thousands of years and have developed specific cultural connections related to the moon. Join the ESTEEM team as we explore the Native American perspective of the moon, preview materials, answer science questions, and allow for dialogue. There will also be a presentation by Annette S. Lee (director of Native Skywatchers) and her Native Skywatchers colleagues: Carl Gawboy; and Jeff Tibbetts on the Ojibwe perspective of the Moon. Following their presentation, we will allow time for dialogue related to other Native American perspectives of the Moon. Discover how to bring moon topics to the classroom through the eyes of Native Americans.



What is “Ask Us”?
“Ask Us” sessions are live streamed google hangouts where participants discuss the topic at hand. Active participants within the google hangout include the featured subject matter experts, members of the ESTEEM team and a few other selected participants who would like to share their voice in the discussion through the hangout.

How do I participate?
There are two ways you can join us:

1. Watch the live stream and ask questions via chat: We invite everyone to watch the “Ask Us” session as it is live streamed on YouTube. A member of the ESTEEM team will be monitoring the chat in YouTube live and raising any questions/comments during the session. Please be aware that you need a Google account to ask questions through the YouTube chat window. Again, please visit our website to view the event on November 8th.

2. Join the conversation: We are looking for people who want to be an active participant within the google hangout! If you are interested in being a part of the conversation by joining the hangout live, please email Bonnie Murray at [email protected]. There are limited spots, so please indicate your interest as soon as possible.

The ESTEEM team hopes to “see” you there!

Bay CLIC has an exciting workshop coming up, Dig Deep Into Extreme Events. Check out the save a date here: https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-9SUvjj_RV10/WfD14BlPSQI/AAAAAAAAAco/BEm6kuokNwQmUutHOoKNplvPVTzfGfqTACLcBGAs/s1600/BayCLIC%2BSave%2Bthe%2BDate_ExtremeEvents%2B%25281%2529.jpg

Check out Katherine Hayhoe's latest video discussing the connections between climate change and extreme weather events.

Was this latest hurricane caused by global warming or not? Is global warming causing all of these hurricanes? Find out in this all new episode of Global Weirding. Global Weirding is produced by KTTZ Texas Tech Public...

Want to work at NCSE? Here's your chance. https://ncse.com/about/jobs

Job Opportunities at NCSE | NCSE The Director of Teacher Support is a new position. We seek a collaborative and entrepreneurial colleague who will help NCSE develop and implement new programs that provide tangible and practical support to as many science teachers as possible. The Director will also be responsible for managing NCSE’...

The application for the Grand Canyon trip is due Feb 1st! You don't want to miss out on being considered for this trip. Apply today!'
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/NCSEGC2017

NCSE Grand Canyon Application Survey Web survey powered by SurveyMonkey.com. Create your own online survey now with SurveyMonkey's expert certified FREE templates.

Happy Friday! Our latest giveaway has just started. This month you can sign up for Jeffrey Bennett's "A Global Warming Primer"
See this blog post to sign up for your copy!

https://ncse.com/blog/2017/01/ncseteach-update-0018431

NCSEteach Update | NCSE Happy New Year from NCSEteach, NCSE’s teacher outreach program! We are excited to be back in action for another year packed with climate change and evolution education.