Global Climate Change and the Need for Relevant Curriculum

With the rising importance of preparing students in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), the establishment of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) is critical to the development of disciplinary core ideas in the study of Weather and Climate. With the recent debate over the issue of global climate change, mostly instigated by the media, and its implications on human activities, economy and international policies, the insertion of this matter as a disciplinary core idea, both for middle and high school, is of great importance. Another factor contributing to the integration of this need is related to research findings about students’ misconceptions about climate change and its direct correlation with media influences (Rajeev Gowda et al., 1997) and the lack of information about climate change inside curricular materials such as current science textbooks (Choi et al., 2010)