Visualizing the Chemistry of Climate Change

普渡大学与国王大学学院的国王科学可视化中心(KCVS)、美国化学学会(ACS)和皇家化学学会(RSC)合作，正在开发、测试和传播一系列基于网络的互动数字学习对象，以帮助一年级本科生化学学生可视化和理解全球气候变化背后的化学。针对有据可查的误解而开发的交互式数字学习对象，正在通过化学教育帮助填补迫切呼吁普及气候科学知识所发现的系统性漏洞。认识到对复杂系统的跨学科理解是理解现代科学的基础，这些数字学习对象还提供了“最佳实践”资源，以支持化学教师采用主动学习教学法，将认知置于真实的科学实践和全球重要背景中。全球气候变化是人类面临的最紧迫的环境挑战之一。开发新能源，减轻气候变化的影响，改变我们的能源消费习惯，这些都是当代学生将越来越多地面临的挑战。美国和世界各地的学院和大学在教育我们的年轻人了解全球气候变化：其根本原因、地区和全球后果，以及我们如何适应和应对气候变化方面发挥着重要作用。虽然关于气候变化的教育任务至关重要，但目前几乎没有可信的、互动的多媒体资源来帮助学习者和教育工作者就理解气候变化的科学证据所涉及的复杂问题进行谈判。许多关键的基本概念需要建立在对化学的基本理解基础上的心理模型，然而，在美国理科专业的一年级本科化学课程中，与气候科学和全球气候变化的联系基本上是缺失的。一套在线的、互动的资源能否帮助学习者可视化气候变化背后的化学：(A)举例说明可持续发展的科学教育；(B)提高本科生和教职员工对气候变化的理解；以及(C)提供支持教学改革的资源？这个项目通过开发一系列在线数字学习对象来探索这些问题，并通过测量本科生对气候变化和通过气候变化科学教授的核心化学概念的理解变化来检查这些工具的有效性。该项目还在制作一份经过测试的气候变化概念清单，供进一步研究使用。这些数字学习对象正在几所大学实施和评估，并通过现有的ACS网络传播给美国学院和大学化学系，以供进一步评估和实施。这项建议的三个共同绩效指标在IUPAC的框架下领导了一个伙伴关系，包括教科文组织、皇家科学委员会、非洲和亚洲化学学会联合会的成员，以传播经过测试的气候变化科学材料，作为对联合国国际化学年(2011)和教科文组织可持续发展教育十年(2005-2014)的贡献。这些数字学习材料正在提供给气候变化科学教育的几个门户网站，包括教科文组织新的全球气候变化教育信息交流中心。

Purdue University, in collaboration with the King's Centre for Visualization in Science (KCVS) at the King's University College, the American Chemical Society (ACS), and the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), is developing, testing, and disseminating a series of interactive web-based digital learning objects to help first-year undergraduate chemistry students visualize and understand the chemistry underlying global climate change. Developed in response to documented misconceptions, the interactive digital learning objects are helping to fill, through chemistry education, a systemic hole identified by urgent calls for climate science literacy. Recognizing that interdisciplinary understanding of complex systems is fundamental to understanding modern science, these digital learning objects also are providing "best-practice" resources to support chemistry instructors in adopting active-learning pedagogies that situate cognition in authentic science practice and globally important contexts.Intellectual Merit. Global climate change is one of the most pressing environmental challenges facing humanity. Developing new energy sources, mitigating the effects of climate change, and altering our energy consumption habits are challenges that will increasingly be met by the current generation of students. Colleges and universities across America and around the world play an important role in educating our youth about global climate change: its root causes, regional and global consequences, and how we can both adapt to and combat climate change. While the task of educating about climate change is critical, few credible, interactive, multimedia resources are currently available to help learners and educators negotiate the complex issues involved in understanding the scientific evidence for climate change. Many of the key underlying concepts require mental models built on a fundamental understanding of chemistry, yet connections to climate science and global climate change are largely missing in American first-year undergraduate chemistry courses for science majors. Can an online, interactive set of resources that helps learners visualize the chemistry underlying climate change: (a) exemplify science education for sustainability, (b) improve the understanding of climate change by both undergraduate students and faculty members, and (c) provide resources to support pedagogical reform? This project explores these questions by developing a series of online digital learning objects and examining the efficacy of these tools by measuring changes in understanding by undergraduate students about both climate change and core chemistry concepts taught through climate change science. The project also is producing a tested inventory of climate change concepts for use in further research.Broader Impact. These digital learning objects are being implemented and evaluated at several universities and are being disseminated to American colleges and university chemistry departments for further evaluation and implementation through existing ACS networks. The three co-PIs for this proposal lead a partnership under the umbrella of IUPAC, involving UNESCO, RSC, ACS, and members of the African and Asian Federations of Chemistry Societies, to disseminate tested climate change science materials as a contribution to the UN International Year of Chemistry (2011) and UNESCO's Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, 2005-2014. These digital learning objects are being made available to several portals for climate change science education, including the new UNESCO global clearing house on climate change education.