Putting climate change on the syllabus

Title: Climate Change for Astronomers: Chapters 8 & 9 

Authors: T. A. Rector / Jeffrey Bennett

Authors’ institutions: University of Alaska Anchorage / Big Kid Science & University of Colorado, Boulder

Status: Published through IOP press [closed access]; available open access here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1g5Bpy40pCCdA23BV4OeTs1Mee0Th92CLNXr3d3rJ4DM/edit?gid=0#gid=0 

Over a quarter million people enroll in an introductory astronomy college class every year. In fact, intro astronomy is often the last formal science course taken by non-science major undergraduate students. Given this, astronomy educators serve as general science instructors in a broader sense, and have the responsibility and opportunity to teach students with diverse lived experiences how to think like a scientist. 

With astronomers serving in this broader role as science educators, they are also tasked with developing students’ general scientific literacy, which in turn supports their future interactions with science later on. In this way, intro astronomy provides a unique opportunity for students to engage with perhaps the most impactful planetary phenomenon of our lives: climate change. In today’s bite, we discuss a few astronomy educators’ rationale and techniques for incorporating climate change education into astronomy classrooms.

Climate Change for Astronomers is a collective resource written by editor Prof. Travis Rector and twenty other scientists working at the intersection of astronomy and climate. The book details strategies and frameworks for astronomers to talk about and engage with climate change advocacy. Here in the Climate Change Committee within Astrobites, we’ve been summarizing each chapter: check out these bites on the book’s introduction, climate change consequences and solutions, and energy solutions. Today, we’re covering Chapter 8: Climate Change in Astro 101 & Chapter 9: Teaching with Inspiration, Not (only) Fear, on why and how to incorporate climate change education in astronomy and physics curricula.

Why astronomers should teach climate change

Some astronomers – including Prof. Travis Rector – have committed to teaching climate change in their astronomy and physics courses, spanning levels and topics (see also related Earth Week event summaries here and here). The intersection may not be immediately obvious, but if you’ve been keeping up with the Astrobites Climate Change Committee, you know that the basics of astronomy and climate science have tons of topical overlap, such as radiative transfer, thermodynamics, and planet habitability. Teaching climate science in intro astronomy classes not only promotes a deeper physical understanding, it also provides the opportunity to address common climate change misconceptions, discuss its consequences, solutions, and controversy, and importantly, develop students’ science and media literacy. 

In Chapter 8, Prof. Rector notes that many students in his introductory courses hold common misconceptions or a general distrust of science, and most students expressed concern, anxiety, or fear around climate change. This fear is exacerbated by the fact that climate change’s current and projected impacts exist on the same timelines as students’ lives. In Chapter 9, astronomer, science educator, and writer Jeffrey Bennett reminds us that many students today will live beyond the year 2100 (an impossibly futuristic-sounding year I heard in my own college classes when learning about climate change projections). The impacts of climate change are serious and ongoing, yet Dr. Bennett reminds us that teaching climate change from a fear-based perspective can be counterproductive: this framing risks simply scaring students (more than they already are) and alienating their parents who may not take these threats seriously. Instead, he recommends teaching scientific truth with inspiration, not fear, by looking ahead to a “post-global warming world”. 

In these two chapters, Dr.’s Rector and Bennett present strategies and resources for teaching climate in astronomy and physics classes. Climate change is unlike other topics astronomers teach, as it is highly emotionally, socially, and politically charged, and can lead to ecoanxiety and fear, especially among the youth that make up most of our undergraduate courses. In light of this, educators should directly address misconceptions and discuss solutions beyond just explaining the science. They should inspire students by emphasizing that the problem is surmountable, and by imagining a future where this problem is solved rather than an imminent threat. The material can be partitioned into three sections: causes, consequences, and solutions to climate change.

Causes

In teaching the causes of climate change, it is crucial to develop basic conceptual foundations, of which astronomy and climate change have a lot in common. One of the most fundamental ideas is developing a sense of scale. Climate change occurs on physical and temporal scales much greater than humans experience day-to-day, and astronomy exists on some of the largest scales we study. However, many key misconceptions in both astronomical and climate contexts are rooted in or exacerbated by misunderstanding the relative scales of “big”. While a million versus a billion may not seem that different, as Prof. Rector points out, it’s critical to convey the contrast to students: for example, while a million seconds adds up to 11.5 days, a billion seconds lasts over 31 years. This can be translated to a deeper understanding of large, contrasting scales in time and space, such as how long Earth’s climate has been as it is (10,000 years) versus how long it’s taken humans to drastically change the climate (100 years), or the Earth’s distance to the Moon versus to the Sun (nearly 400 times further). 

Physical concepts related to the electromagnetic spectrum and the way light behaves are critical concepts in both climate change and astronomy. In teaching the basic principles of electromagnetic radiation from our Sun and other stars, it’s relevant to also describe how starlight behaves within planetary atmospheres such as on Venus and Earth. This leads to a deeper understanding of the greenhouse effect. By incorporating content on solar system orbits, students can learn how seasons and cycles work, and directly investigate how and why these natural climate cycles on Earth are not responsible for current climate change (see the below video). If the course is taking a solar system or planetary focus, it can be straightforward to incorporate additional content such as geologic histories, astrobiology and the likelihood of life on Earth and other planets, and radiometric dating.

After developing this general science literacy, the key learning goals are to understand the difference between natural and human-caused (or anthropogenic) climate change, the sources and sinks of greenhouse gases (collectively known as the “carbon budget”), and that climate change primarily results from the use of fossil fuels. During this section, it is important to directly address common misconceptions, by discussing the natural producers of greenhouse gases (for example volcanic eruptions, forest fires, thawing permafrost, seasonal cycles), and demonstrating that these exist on very different scales compared to anthropogenic drivers (essentially, burning fossil fuels). This demonstration of the scientific method and exercise of hypothesis testing then leads to the conclusion: we’ve definitively ruled out all other causes, therefore climate change is real and human-caused.

Consequences

Once students have built a conceptual understanding, and common misconceptions related to the causes of climate change have been addressed, it is critical to connect the problem back to the students’ lived experiences by discussing the consequences of climate change. In their courses, Dr.’s Rector and Bennett aim to motivate why we care by explaining why climate change is such a serious problem, how it is impacting us now, and what could come in the future. In this section, it is important to take a place-based approach, by focusing on local impacts that affect people’s health, culture, and lives. Some examples of these impacts include the increase in frequency or severity of extreme weather events and natural disasters, the decrease in biodiversity, and the decrease in crop production as demand for food increases (for folks in the US, the National Climate Assessment report assesses the impacts, risks, and adaptation strategies by region). However, when discussing these impacts, it is more impactful and accurate to reframe the narrative from “did climate change cause this?” to “did climate change make it worse?”

In this section, educators should make the connection from a few degrees Celsius of global warming to significant global changes. It can be helpful to use the term “global weirding” (as Canadian atmospheric scientist and science communicator Katharine Hayhoe calls it) to emphasize that these changes are not uniform everywhere. From rising sea levels, to ocean acidification, to worsening extreme weather events, and more, the impacts are widespread and it is impossible to cover them all. In this section, educators should discuss the major feedback loops related to these consequences, and remind the class that we have not yet reached the tipping points of each of these consequences.

Solutions

Understanding the serious and imminent impacts of climate change can certainly be terrifying. However, beyond understanding the causes and consequences of climate change, students need to know that there is hope; a comprehensive and effective climate change curriculum is incomplete without a focus on solutions. While the number of Americans who think global warming is happening greatly outnumber those who don’t (by 5 times!), and a majority of Americans believe global warming is human-caused, there is a significant lack of opportunities for people to hear or talk about climate change. Consequently, many people are concerned about climate change but don’t know what they can do.

The problem of climate change is complex, yet the solution is simple: stop using fossil fuels. Of course, this simple solution is challenging: while the technology to do this does exist, burning fossil fuels is deeply embedded in how our societies function, and policy and societal change has not caught up. In turn, there are many other climate mitigation and adaptation strategies stemming from this bigger goal. By giving students the tools and resources to take action in a way that aligns with their interests and values – ranging from switching to renewable energy sources, increasing education access for women, reforestation, eating plant-rich diets, getting involved in grassroots efforts or local government roles, and much more – astronomy instructors can both educate and empower their students. Ultimately, there are many ways forward and no single solution to climate change, but it is important to remind students that by using most of the solutions available, we can still fix this global problem.

While empowering students to take action, it is critical to take care when talking about individual choices. Blaming the individual for climate change does not inspire hope or accountability, and the intentional shift in blame from producers to the consumer was designed by fossil fuel companies decades ago (in fact, they created the “carbon footprint”). Many of us – especially marginalized folks – do not have the resources or access to make every personal choice needed to completely avoid emitting greenhouse gases. In fact, fossil fuel and related industries have worked for decades to stop or slow the transition to renewable energies, though they have known of the negative impacts since the 1980s (read more here). By sharing with students the evidence for these rampant propaganda and disinformation campaigns, educators can also help students build science and media literacy, and learn how to identify and interpret trustworthy sources and science results.

Though it is important to avoid blaming individual people for climate change, personal choices do make a difference, and in fact one of the easiest and most impactful individual actions people can take is talking about climate change. This small step serves to build community and hope among people who care for our planet. In class, this can be an opportunity to envision an actually positive future outcome, rather than climate disaster. After all, our classrooms in part represent the creators of the future world.

Resources

For astronomers and science educators globally, the authors’ call to action is to incorporate hope-centered, solutions-oriented, place-based climate change education in our courses. Examples of class materials and resources they used are made available here:

• For high school, college, and the general public: A Global Warming Primer, which uses a Q&A format to go into much more depth on climate change science, consequences, and solutions
• For undergraduates: Prof. Rector’s Climate Change 101 slideset (feel free to modify, and update with more recent results)
• For middle/high school: Free, digital textbook for Earth and Space Science at grade8science.com; Chapter 7 focuses on climate change and can be used for as much as about a month-long unit on the topic.
• For younger kids: a children’s book, The Wizard Who Saved the World, that follows a young child as he learns about global warming and how he can help us solve the problem and build the kind of promising future discussed in this article. More info is here, and a video reading of this book from the International Space Station is available here.

This article was written as a part of our Climate Change Series. We’d love to hear what you would like to see from this initiative – if you have ideas, please let us know in this google form.

Disclaimer: This article was written and edited by a group of Astrobites authors. It is not intended to be representative of the views of the AAS (which supports Astrobites) or all astronomers.

Astrobite edited by Abbe Whitford

Featured image credit: NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison, using data from DSCOVR EPIC and Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.