Science and Mathematics Education Commons^™

Solar Panels, Euler’S Method And Community-Based Projects: Connecting Differential Equations With Climate Change, Victor J. Donnay

CODEE Journal

How does mathematics connect with the search for solutions to the climate emergency? One simple connection, which can be explored in an introductory differential equations course, can be found by analyzing the energy generated by solar panels or wind turbines. The power generated by these devices is typically recorded at standard time intervals producing a data set which gives a discrete approximation to the power function $P(t)$. Using numerical techniques such as Euler’s method, one can determine the energy generated. Here we describe how we introduce the topic of solar power, apply Euler’s method to determine the energy generated, and …

Climate Change, Admin Stem For Success

STEM for Success Showcase

This lesson plan teaches students about climate change and its effect on animals and insects. Students can then participate in a climate change fact or myth game and a climate change Pictionary game.

Citizen Scientists And Artists: Integrating Arts And Technology To Teach The Effects Of Climate Change On Bird Migration, Laura Fattal Dr., Heejung An Dr.

The STEAM Journal

Ways to incorporate climate change into K-12 curricula are of growing interest to many science educators. The International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space (ICARUS) examines animal and bird migrations as a lens to understand climate change aiding educators with its emphasis on technological imagining in science and visual arts teaching and learning. This article presents an interdisciplinary unit pertaining to bird migration and climate change that integrates the arts and technology by placing upper-elementary students in the position of being citizen scientists and artists, leading to a culminating art installation project. The unit shows how a variety of digital …

Science Education To The Rescue? Assessing The Relationship Between Scientific Literacy And Carbon Emissions, Anthony Schmidt

Doctoral Dissertations

Human activities have radically changed the climate, negatively impacting all life on earth. The technical means to address this climate crisis exist, but there are major social and political hurdles that stand in the way. Education has been touted as one possible means for helping to move forward necessary action on climate change. A hybrid model of planned behavior and human capital helps explain how education can affect climate change. The current dissertation sought to assess what relationship may exist between changes in per capita carbon emissions and science education as measured by the Programme for International Student Achievement (PISA). …

The Carbon Price Equivalent: A Metric For Comparing Climate Change Mitigation Efforts Across Jurisdictions, Gabriel Weil

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Climate change presents a global commons problem: Emissions reductions on the scale needed to meet global targets do not pass a domestic cost-benefit test in most countries. To give national governments ample incentive to pursue deep decarbonization, mutual interstate coercion will be necessary. Many proposed tools of coercive climate diplomacy would require a onedimensional metric for comparing the stringency of climate change mitigation policy packages across jurisdictions. This article proposes and defends such a metric: the carbon price equivalent. There is substantial variation in the set of climate change mitigation policy instruments implemented by different countries. Nonetheless, the consequences of …

No Evidence Of Fine Scale Thermal Adaption In Green Turtles, Taylor Apter

Scientific Communication News

No abstract provided.

A Phenomenological Inquiry Into The Teaching Of Climate Change, Daniel Diego

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore the ways in which educators address climate change and the impacts of human activity on the environment in conjunction with the Next Generation Science Standards. This study utilized qualitative methods, a phenomenological methodology informed by Moustakas, and a Systems Theory and Ecojustice Education conceptual framework. The central research questions was: in what ways do educators who are implementing the Next Generation Science Standards address climate change and the impacts of human activity on the environment? The supporting research questions were: in what ways do educators who are implementing the Next Generation Science …

Climate Change In A Differential Equations Course: Using Bifurcation Diagrams To Explore Small Changes With Big Effects, Justin Dunmyre, Nicholas Fortune, Tianna Bogart, Chris Rasmussen, Karen Keene

CODEE Journal

The environmental phenomenon of climate change is of critical importance to today's science and global communities. Differential equations give a powerful lens onto this phenomenon, and so we should commit to discussing the mathematics of this environmental issue in differential equations courses. Doing so highlights the power of linking differential equations to environmental and social justice causes, and also brings important science to the forefront in the mathematics classroom. In this paper, we provide an extended problem, appropriate for a first course in differential equations, that uses bifurcation analysis to study climate change. Specifically, through studying hysteresis, this problem highlights …

An Interdisciplinary Approach To Understanding Predator-Prey Relationships In A Changing Ocean: From System Design To Education, Ileana M. Freytes-Ortiz

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Climate change is ecologically and socially complex, deemed the most important issue of our generation. Through this dissertation I have approached climate change research through an interdisciplinary perspective, investigating how this phenomenon will affect marine ecological systems, how we can better develop experimental systems to answer ecological questions, and how we can effectively educate about this issue.

In Chapter 2, I provided accessible alternatives for researching the effects of climate change (elevated temperatures and pCO2) on marine ecosystems. I designed, built, and troubleshooted two accurate and inexpensive climate-controlled experimental systems capable of maintaining target conditions: a temperature-controlled system and an …

Apathy And Concern Over The Future Habitability Of Earth: An Introductory College Assignment Of Forecasting Co2 In The Earth’S Atmosphere, Benjamin J. Burger

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

Non-science, first year regional undergraduate students from rural Utah communities participated in an online introductory geology course and were asked to forecast the rise of CO₂ in the Earth’s atmosphere. The majority of students predicted catastrophic rise to 5,000-ppm sometime over the next 3,100 years, resulting in an atmosphere nearly uninhabitable to human life. However, the level of concern the students exhibited in their answers was not directly proportional with their timing in their forecasted rise of CO₂. This study showcases the importance of presenting students with actual data and using data to develop student forecasted models. …

Employing Multivariate Logistic Regression Analysis To Better Understand The Relationship Between Individuals’ Anthropogenic Climate Change Acceptance And Belief In Anti-Climate Change Dissenter Messages, Andrew Phillip Keller Bentley

Dissertations

Organized climate change dissention groups spend a considerable amount of time and energy developing messages designed to convince the public that anthropogenic climate change is neither a reality nor a threat. These messages work against the efforts of climate educators and can be divided into two categories; messages that provide alternative explanations for warming, or messages that attack the work of scientists studying anthropogenic climate change. There has been a lack of research regarding any correlation between individuals’ agreement with these messages and their rejection of anthropogenic climate change. Establishing a correlation would be an indication that educators should take …

The Promise Of An Energy Tracker Curriculum For Promoting Home-School Connections And Youth Agency In Climate Action, Elizabeth M. Walsh, Derek Jenkins, Eugene Cordero

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Formal classroom learning experiences that support sustainable behaviors outside the classroom necessarily must bridge students’ home and school lives, as knowledge and practice learned in the classroom is implemented outside of school. To this end, we study the impact of the Green Ninja Energy Tracker curriculum, which uses students’ home energy data in the classroom to promote engagement in climate change and conservation behaviors. Data is drawn from class observations, a focus group, and pre- and post- surveys of a pilot implementation of this curriculum in a diverse 12th-grade Earth Science classroom at an alternative school. We investigate what factors …

Pre-Service Teachers And Climate Change: A Stalemate?, Helen J. Boon

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Findings from the second phase of a study of pre-service teachers’ attitudes to environmental education and knowledge of climate change are reported in this paper. A sample of 87 pre-service teachers participated in a survey study in the last year of their Bachelor of Education degree to examine developments to their attitudes to environmental education and their knowledge of climate change as a result of training. Results showed their attitudes towards environmental education were consistently favourable, but their climate change science knowledge had not changed as a result of their participation in their degree. Data on preservice teachers’ sources of …

View Of Socioscientific Issues Among Educators: The Willingness Of Teachers To Accept Ssi Into The Classroom And The Reason Underlying Those Beliefs, John Carlos Parr

Dissertations

Socioscientific issues (SSI) are potentially controversial topics, which can be examined using a social and a scientific perspective. The inclusion of these topics in elementary and secondary classrooms has caused a number of conflicts over the past century. In the present study, I explore the willingness of teachers to include three SSI: evolution, stem cell research, and global climate change in the science curricula. Participants included 221 educators currently employed in K-12 schools. Teachers have the greatest impact on classroom instruction, regardless of state curricula. I found most educators willing to include the three previously named SSI in the curricula, …

Students' Conceptions About Climate Change: Using Critical Evaluation To Influence Plausibility Reappraisals And Knowledge Reconstruction, Doug Lombardi

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2007) reported a greater than 90% chance that human activities are responsible for global temperature increases over the last 50 years, as well as other climatic changes. The scientific report also states that alternative explanations (e.g., increasing energy received from the Sun) are less plausible than human-induced climate change. These climate scientists have made their plausibility judgment--which I define as the relative potential truthfulness of alternative explanations--based on the evaluation and coordination of multiple lines evidence with competing theoretical perspectives.

Climate change is a highly relevant and gravely serious topic; in an educational setting, …

Climate & Chemistry- An Introductory Course For First Year Students, Catrena Lisse, Chavonda Mills, Julia Metzker

Interdisciplinary STEM Teaching & Learning Conference (2012-2019)

Students will be able to:

• explain multiple approaches that respond to problems in chemistry

• implement effective search strategies and evaluate sources of chemical information for relevance and authority.

• explain and analyze scientific evidence.

• form logical conclusions from the chemical information presented.

• understand the chemical properties of atoms, molecules, ions and gases.

• understand the chemical principles of stoichiometry, reactions in solutions, thermochemistry, atomic structure, periodicity and bonding.

• construct strategies to solve problems with integrated concepts and evaluate solutions

Current Status Of Lichen Diversity In Iowa, James T. Colbert

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

No abstract provided.

Artists' Depictions Of Catsteps In The Loess Hills Of Iowa: Evidence For Mid-Nineteenth Century Climate Change, Kimberly R. Dillon, Steven H. Emerman, Pamela K. Wilcox

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

Catsteps are the staircase-like features common on hillslopes of the Loess Hills of western Iowa. The record of artistic depictions of the Loess Hills was examined to determine when catsteps appeared. George Catlin, Karl Bodmer, and John James Audubon traveled up the Missouri River m 1832, 1833 and 1843, respectively, and between them, produced 31 works of art depicting either the Loess Hills or the loess bluffs on the Nebraska side of the river. Only three works by Bodmer of Blackbird Hill on the Nebraska side possibly show catsteps. The Assistant State Geologist, Orestes St. John, produced six sketches of …

Iowa's Declining Flora And Fauna: A Review Of Changes Since 1980 And An Outlook For The Future, Neil P. Bernstein

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

The status of Iowa's biodiversity was first summarized at a 1980 Iowa Academy of Science (IAS) symposium that was published in The Proceedings of the Iowa Academy of Science (Vol. 88, No. 1) in 1981. The 1980 symposium was updated in a recent IAS symposium, and the proceedings from this symposium are published, for the most part, in volume 105 of this journal. Most of the authors noted some positive trends, but, overall, species declines and habitat destruction remained a concern.

A Search For Average, Extremes, And Runs Of Unusual Weather In Iowa, R. E. Carlson, D. P. Todey

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

Temperature and precipitation during the past decade have exhibited wide variation throughout Iowa. Is this unusual? An attempt was made to answer this question by computing various statistical parameters that characterize variation in Iowa's long term climatic record. Absolute deviations were used to identify the most and least variable months and years since 1900. Overall, 1936 with a very cold winter and very warm summer was the least normal year. Runs of daily weather showed that heat and cold stress could often persist for more than 1 month. Runs of dry days were much longer than runs of wet days. …

Analysis Of An Iowa Aridity Index In Relationship To Climate And Crop Yield, Soumare Harouna, R. E. Carlson

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

An aridity index and its components, temperature and precipitation, for the period from 1900 through April 1993 were defined and characterized. This index describes the anomalous behavior of both temperature and precipitation over time. Our intent was to examine climate variability in Iowa. Moving mean and standard deviations over various lengths of time were calculated from three time series. We found that these indices fluctuate considerably from year to year and from month to month. The lowest aridity index values occurred in the recent summer of 1992, and the highest occurred during the very drought-prone 1930s. The 12-month moving mean …

Iowa's Climate As Projected By The Global Climate Model Of The Goddard Institute For Space Studies For A Doubling Of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide, E. S. Takle, S. Zhong

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

Results of a global climate model that simulates climate under a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide (estimated to occur by the latter half of the twenty first century) have been interpolated to Iowa. Summer temperatures under such a doubling are projected to rise by 4 to 7°F (2.2 to 3.9°C) and winter temperatures by 10 to 11° (5.6 to 6.1°C). Estimates of space heating and cooling demands from these data suggest a 30 to 35% decrease in space heat demand and a 200 to 300% increase in space cooling demand. Temperature variability is projected to decrease. Precipitation estimates from global …

Heating Degree Days In Iowa Relative To Home Natural Gas Consumption, Conservation Efforts, And Long-Term Trends, Richard E. Carlson

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

A methodology is presented to assess the effectiveness of conservation efforts relative to home heating. Billing period heating degree days and natural gas consumption relationships are established for a typical household for nineteen heating seasons using simple linear regression. Associated correlations (r² values) were greater than 0. 95 for nineteen different seasons. Regression coefficients (b₀ and b₁) were found to decrease with time indicating reduced natural gas consumption due to conservation efforts. Procedures are presented to illustrate dollar savings relative to conservation efforts using the regression relationships. Long-term trends for heating degree days at the Ames, …

Atmospheric Response To 1988 Drought Conditions And Future Climate Implications, Michael D. Mccorcle

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

Plentiful precipitation in the central United States is one of the basic components of the successful agricultural industry in the Corn Belt. A combination of moisture, wind, and topographic factors creates an ideal condition for rainfall over most of the region during the late spring and early summer. In 1988, many ingredients necessary for wet weather were absent. The region experienced a drought unequalled since the 1930's. The drought of 1988 demonstrated chat the symptom of drought, namely, dry soils, can exacerbate and even perpetuate drought conditions by decreasing available moisture, altering circulation patterns vital to storm development, and increasing …

Climate Change And The Potential Impact On The Soil Resource, J. L. Hatfield

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

Climatic change will lead to changes in the carbon dioxide C0_2, temperature, and precipitation. There have been many predictions of the effect of climatic change on plant growth but none on the soil parameters or water use. To fully understand the implications on soil management from climate change the expected changes in soil temperature, water use, and water and nutrient use efficiency need quantification.

Climate Trends In Iowa, Richard E. Carlson

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

Long-term trends for various weather elements are presented for the period 1900-1988. Summer and winter season, and annual air temperature patterns are statistically weak because of large inrerannual variability, but trends are evident. There was a general warming from 1900 until the 40's, with a leveling or slight cooling following. Since the mid-70's, a warming trend seems to be taking place, but this cannot be confirmed. Spring season air temperatures showed no trend except that the most recent 4 years (1985-1988) were decidedly warmer than normal. Winter season air temperatures showed a change in trend in the 30's, but the …