Faculty Publications

Climate Science Language In Us Secondary School Student Textbooks, 2002-2012

Document Type

Article

Keywords

Climate change education, Climate literacy, Earth science, Secondary education, Textbooks

Journal/Book/Conference Title

Handbook of the Changing World Language Map

Volume

1

First Page

3301

Last Page

3318

Abstract

Climate science language has a profound effect on students, lending voice and power to a complex, and at times, controversial subject despite scientific consensus. Climate science language usage for US secondary earth science textbooks from 2002 to 2012 is examined. Future decision-makers will need to be climate literate in order to make choices about how to mitigate and/or adapt to climate change. Formal education plays a key role in creating an informed citizenry-one that is able to evaluate information for its reliability, validity, and veracity in order to draw reasonable and logical conclusions. In the US's K-12 schools, science education is largely reliant on educational textbooks and publisher-supplied materials. Textbooks strive to reach a broad national audience often using general language and simplified topics, but climate science is an interdisciplinary and complicated topic. As such, understanding what earth science textbooks include and how it is conveyed provides an opportunity for publishers, scientists, and schools to better communicate scientific results and human decisions in order to address and understand climate change's complexity.

Department

Department of Geography

Original Publication Date

10-22-2019

DOI of published version

10.1007/978-3-030-02438-3_32

Repository

UNI ScholarWorks, Rod Library, University of Northern Iowa

Language

en

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