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、测试和传播一系列交互式基于网络的数字学习对象，以帮助一年级本科化学学生可视化和理解全球气候变化的化学基础。为了应对有记录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气候科学素养紧急呼吁所确定的系统性漏洞。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方法，在真实的科学实践和全球重要背景下增强认知。 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是当代学生将越来越多地遇到的挑战。 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方面发挥着重要作用：其根源，区域和全球后果，以及我们如何适应和应对气候变化。虽然气候变化教育的任务是至关重要的，但目前几乎没有可靠的互动多媒体资源可用于帮助学习者和教育者讨论理解气候变化科学证据所涉及的复杂问题。许多关键的基础概念都需要建立在对化学的基本理解之上的思维模型，但美国理科专业一年级本科化学课程中基本上缺乏与气候科学和全球气候变化的联系。 一套在线、互动的资源，帮助学习者直观地了解气候变化背后的化学作用，能否：（a）促进可持续性的科学教育，（B）提高本科生和教职员工对气候变化的理解，（c）提供资源支持教学改革？该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。 该项目还编制了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网络传播到美国学院和大学化学系进行进一步的评估和实施。该建议的三个共同参与者在国际理论和应用化学联合会（IUPAC）的框架下牵头建立了一个伙伴关系，涉及教科文组织、区域研究中心（RSC）、加勒比国家联盟（ACS）以及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年）和教科文组织2005-2014年教育促进可持续发展十年的贡献。这些数字学习对象正在提供给气候变化科学教育的几个门户网站，包括新的教科文组织气候变化教育全球信息交换所。

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.