Heck, expand it further and create a “Climate Change Symposium” at your school - any students can choose which side they want to stand on, collect their evidence and arguments, and present it. Invite other teachers and students to review everyone’s findings.

It’s an interesting opportunity to show students that real-world science is not “follow-the-recipe-and-get-the-right-answer” as they might perceive from classroom labs.

But like March 13th, 2008 at 11:46 am says, it might be enough for you to plant the seed of doubt - or give them the tools with which to sow it - for your point to be made.

Good luck to you!

Maybe it’s time for a mini-course on rhetoric versus science. I wonder if there are any university scientists in your area who could come in and discuss this with the class.

I would also offer a caveat to Cathi’s message stating that we should present both sides. Yes, it’s important for kids (and parents) to understand that not every scientist is in perfect agreement about global warming (scientists are not in perfect agreement about any theory). However, I would be careful not to spend a disproportional amount of time talking about counter arguments that are not backed up by data. Your class provides an excellent opportunity for kids to separate belief from the balance of evidence.

RC

Peer-reviewed science is not only scorned by this group but is vilified as the “kool-aid” that the “liberal left-wing conspiracy” is serving up to the public. (I am exhausted at this point but will continue to press on.) Just to make clear of what I am doing with this group: students are participating in the Climate Change PBL module published by ESSEA. I set up the groups to insure diversity in ideas, abilities, and levels of motivation. Because I didn’t let this group of kids work together, the kids and parents are very upset, saying that I am “diluting” their voices. Oh well…

The greatest part of all of this: not one of these students have ever received anything more than a C in a science class and now all of them have grades of B+ or better. Sometimes that fire we are all trying to light can be a bit too hot.

Please keep the ideas coming. I am compiling all of them. I have decided that AP Environmental Science students need some quintessential peer-reviewed papers to read over the summer. Now I just have to figure out what those might be!

i do agree that it can take years for ideas to sink in and for some to open their minds but the efforts are worth it.

hang in there!!

It was not until I was in college and separated from my family that I felt comfortable in the role of independent thinker. I sought out answers for myself, I spoke with professors one on one, I read lots of books (my mother cried one time when I came home from college and she found Origin of Species in my bookbag). I had to find my own answers on my own terms, and had to find teachers/professors who would answer my questions in a non-threatening, non-condescending way (my high school teacher made fun of me when I questioned evolution–not a fun experience!)

So keep that in mind–it may seem like a losing battle, but there are ways to make impressions on close-minded students, and you may never see the results firsthand!

For one thing, here is another good “FAQ” page about climate change, this one from NOAA (don’t think it’s one that anyone has cited already),
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html

My suggestion is to be careful in what one teaches and presents–it’s going to take some careful thought about the best way to say this–to make sure that anything one presents as “fact” or as “clearly demonstrated” or as “the clear consensus of the scientific community”, does indeed not go beyond what is positively documented by a good chain of logic. Whenever there are points, or steps in the chain of logical connections, that are somewhat in doubt or unresolved, be willing to admit that and don’t gloss over them, because to do so will give “opponents” opportunities to point out these flaws, and perhaps thereby cast doubt on the whole argument.

For example, the present increase in atmospheric CO2 is documented and unimpeachable, and can be fairly clearly linked to anthropogenic CO2 generation. The present increase in global temperatures, on the other hand, is a much smaller effect, much more difficult to measure, has a much larger “signal to noise ratio”, and is susceptible to many other possible interpretations and possible causes, all of which must be carefully considered and investigated before they can be discarded. Likewise, the projected global temperature increase in the coming decades or century(s), while clearly expected as a consequence of the CO2 increase, depends on complex computer models which have many uncertainties as far as calculation of the exact magnitude of the increase. The FAQ site I refer to above says,

Global surface temperatures have increased about 0.6°C (plus or minus 0.2°C) since the late-19th century, and about 0.4°F (0.2 to 0.3°C) over the past 25 years (the period with the most credible data).

and

the IPCC projects a global temperature increase of anywhere from 1.4 - 5.8°C from 1990-2100

One should be careful to acknowledge, and not ignore or minimize, the +/- attached to these figures, which are considerable, and of course not to just emphasize the high end of the projected figures.

People are exposed to some very eloquently expressed criticisms and alternate explanations to the “consensus” ideas about global climate change and global warming, such as the “Global Warming Swindle” video and this (below) “Convenient Lie” website,
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20070315&articleId=5086

and these counter-arguments give every appearance of citing what sound, at least on the surface, like good scientific documentation for the “other” explanations, and quote what sound like reputable climate scientists in their counter-arguments. It just means we all have to be extra careful about making sure that what we present pays attention to all the questions and uncertainties–and of course, from doing that, there is a great deal to be learned.

I don’t know if this helps in any particular way or not, but I wanted to take a shot at it!

PM

GP

- science is “made” by publications in peer-reviewed journals
- this is so because the standard for getting and keeping a job at a university or federal lab is number and quality of publications
- reputations are made on the quality of scientific output (i.e. publications) over a career
- pubs in the highest ranked journals (Nature/Science) mean the most
- it is easiest to get published if you are making a controversial and rock-solid case in tearing down an established orthodoxy
- in the case of climate change, many careers will be made if people can publish rock-solid papers refuting major points on climate change
- the fact that nobody has done so isn’t evidence of suppression, since doing so would launch a career. It’s evidence that the evidence refuting climate change isn’t there
- peer review is currently the gold standard in science. It’s not perfect, but it creates an incentive structure to weed out bad science. It does this via embarrassment mostly; when occasional bad science is published and discovered, the journal and editors (and by extension the peer reviewers even though they are anonymous) are all left with eggy faces. Nobody has an incentive to publish science that will later be shown bogus.

At the end of this, you might ask the doubting students to produce 5 recent peer-reviewed articles in reputable journals that refute the major tenets of climate change “orthodoxy”

KV