Session B04: Climate Science in the Physics Classroom

Teaching about Climate Change and Sustainability in the Physics Classroom: Ideas from the American Journal of Physics

Physics students should be able to give a clear and correct summary of the mechanism of human-induced climate change and the evidence that it is occurring. Teaching physics students about climate science is not simply preaching to the choir; our goal is to teach the choir to be preachers.  Our physics majors, and even students who enroll in only a single physics course, should all understand the basics of climate science.  Recognizing the importance of teaching about climate change, the American Journal of Physics and The Physics Teacher both created special collections on this topic, with AJP's papers on this topic publishing in the September 2023 issue and TPT's extending from September 2023 through January 2024.  This talk shares the ideas of many of our authors, including analytic calculations of the greenhouse effect that can be presented on a blackboard, experimental sequences that allow students to develop their own understanding of the key concepts, and new courses and course sequences that explore topics such as carbon footprinting and sustainable building design.   

Incorporating environmental issues in the curriculum through a laboratory course-based authentic learning experience with upper- and lower-division physics classes.

The implementation of course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) and authentic learning experiences (ALEs) in science classrooms conveys multiple benefits, including increased student retention, growth in teamwork and communication skills, and a strengthening of the students' science identity. In this talk, I describe the implementation of an authentic learning experience centered around developing river water quality monitoring devices for use in a local river system. The ALE spans both lower- and upper-division physics courses, involving students across different stages of their college careers in a collaborative project. I will share how we use the project to both raise awareness of project possible upper-division project work among lower-division students, increase students' awareness of how their coursework has real-world applications, and heighten students' understanding of how physicists can play a role in research on environmental issues.

The project is part of the "Expanding Sustainable Interdisciplinary Research to Inspire Undergraduate Success" (SIRIUS-II) project which aims to grow authentic learning experiences on our and surrounding campuses. In this talk, I will share some of the aims and outcomes of this project, and describe how our physics classroom ALE can be integrated with other disciplines to create an interdisciplinary learning experience as part of the ALE design.   

Energy in Its Material and Social Context: Power Plants

One way for science teaching to have significance beyond the classroom is for science education to be in the service of community organizing and ethical decision-making. Power plants have tremendous social significance both locally and globally. In what follows, we will consider the energy dynamics of two electrical power production facilities: (1) the largest coal-fired electrical power production facility in the United States and (2) one of the facilities that provides significant electrical power to the authors. Rather than analyzing power plants apart from their material and social context, we suggest an analysis that includes the relationships between the power plant and the surrounding human, plant, and animal communities, as well as lands, waters, and air. Our intent is to model an approach to energy learning that begins to prepare students to engage in ethical decision-making about energy resources.