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交互式数字学习对象，以帮助一年级化学本科生可视化和理解全球气候变化背后的化学。交互式数字学习对象的开发是为了回应有记录的误解，通过化学教育，帮助填补了气候科学素养的紧急呼吁所确定的系统漏洞。认识到对复杂系统的跨学科理解是理解现代科学的基础，这些数字学习对象也提供了“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。知识价值。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，这些挑战将越来越多地由这一代学生来应对。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：它的根本原因、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至关重要，但目前可用于帮助学习者和教育者就理解气候变化科学证据所涉及的复杂问题进行谈判的可信、互动的多媒体资源很少。许多关键的基本概念需要建立在对化学基本理解的基础上的心理模型，然而，在美国理科专业本科一年级的化学课程中，与气候科学和全球气候变化的联系在很大程度上是缺失的。一套在线的、互动的资源能够帮助学习者可视化气候变化背后的化学现象吗？ (a)举例说明可持续发展的科学教育；(b)提高本科生和教师对气候变化的理解；(c)提供支持教学改革的资源？本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。该项目还正在编制一份经过检验的气候变化概念清单，供进一步研究使用。更广泛的影响。这些数字学习对象正在几所大学实施和评估，并正在通过现有的ACS网络传播到美国的学院和大学化学系进行进一步的评估和实施。该提案的三个合作项目在IUPAC的框架下领导了一个伙伴关系，包括联合国教科文组织、英国皇家科学委员会、美国化学学会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）和联合国教科文组织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.