CAREER: Developing Elementary Teachers’ Self-Efficacy to Teach about Climate Change Using Community-Based Practices

Climate change is a critical 21st-century issue. This project will support pre-service and in-service teachers in professional development that will prepare them to teach about climate change in community-specific ways. This project aims to advance elementary teachers’ development in three high-impact areas: (a) their self-efficacy toward teaching climate change science or beliefs and attitudes about teaching climate change science; (b) their science content knowledge around climate change; and (c) their climate change identity, or how they view their agency and role in climate change.

Participating in-service teachers will co-design a justice-centered climate change instructional model by adding activities to the Global Climate Change and Urban Heat Island WISE unit. The newly designed lessons will focus on issues related to the local context, such as how climate change disproportionately affects vulnerable communities in Florida.

Further, the lessons will address local and state policies that impact climate change. This CAREER award is funded by the Discovery Research preK-12 program (DRK-12) which seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students and teachers, through research and development of innovative resources, models and tools.

Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for proposed projects.

This project will implement a community-based science instructional model using the web-based inquiry science environment (WISE) as a tool to support pre-service and in-service teachers’ self-efficacy, climate change identity, and science content knowledge and examine the effect of participation across the three high-impact areas. Data collected include pre- and post-test of teachers’ climate change knowledge, interview data and survey data from a survey to be developed that measures teachers’ climate change identity.

Results from this project will contribute developmentally appropriate foundational knowledge around climate change education in elementary science education programs by introducing pre-service teachers to climate change education and building their self-efficacy for teaching it. It will also provide in-service elementary teachers with professional activities to increase their climate change self-efficacy.

Key contributions include the development, refinement, and dissemination of climate change instructional models (e.g., instructional materials, website materials, teacher workshops) to understand and enhance pre-service and in-service elementary teachers’ self-efficacy toward climate change education as a part of the project’s educational activities.

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.