BAMOS April 2021
10 AMOS 2021
Climate Classrooms at the AMOS National Conference
Ian Macadam and Sanaa Hobeichi ( on behalf of the Climate Classrooms Team )
The Climate Classrooms Team : Sanaa Hobeichi 1 , 2 , Ian Macadam 1 , 2 , Tahnee Burgess 3 , David Holmes 3 , Angela Maharaj 1 , 2 and Robyn Schofield 1 , 4
1 ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes 2 Climate Change Research Centre , UNSW Sydney 3 Monash Climate Change Communication Research Hub
4 University of Melbourne
Australian Research Council ’ s Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes School Resources Developer Sanaa Hobeichi working on assembling teams for the workshop .
Climate Classrooms is a joint project of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes and the Monash Climate Change Communication Research Hub . It has two main aims . Firstly , it aims to raise the profile of climate science in secondary school Science , Technology , Engineering and Mathematics ( STEM ) subjects . Despite having the name ' climate science ', this topic often has a much lower profile because it sits under geography , which is not classified by schools as STEM . This can lead to a misconception among students that they do not need STEM skills to pursue climate science at university . It also means a lack of awareness among STEM students that their passions and skills can be applied to climate science , to the detriment of the field . However , Climate Classrooms is not only concerned with STEM subjects . It aims to build the climate science literacy of students in other subjects too . This contributes to empowering the upcoming generation to make well-informed decisions related to climate change .
The approach taken by Climate Classrooms to bring climate science to the classroom relies on workshops in which school educators and climate scientists work together . Participants develop draft educational resources using examples from climate science to address objectives of the Australian curriculum . The Climate Classrooms Team then works to develop some of the content generated by the workshop into fully-fledged teaching resources aligned to the Australian curriculum , which are made freely available at https :// www . monash . edu / mcccrh / projects / climate-classrooms . The team also works with TROP ICSU ( Trans-disciplinary Research Oriented Pedagogy for Improving Climate Studies and Understanding ), a global project funded by the International Council of Science , to contribute to a repository of educational resources on climate change that can be used worldwide .
The AMOS National Conference provides an ideal forum for the Climate Classrooms workshops . The inaugural workshop was held at the AMOS 2020 conference in Fremantle , Western Australia . It involved over 60 participants , mainly climate scientists from the conference and secondary school teachers from the Fremantle and Perth area . It has so far resulted in the release of three lesson plans . The successful model of the Fremantle workshop was replicated at this year ’ s AMOS conference in February . The conference was held online due to the COVID pandemic , so the associated Climate Classrooms workshop took the form of a half-day event run via Zoom .
Workshop participants fell into three broad categories . Firstly , there were 16 climate scientists and knowledge brokers from UNSW , Monash University , University of Melbourne , CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology . These ranged from PhD students to professors . Secondly — and most importantly — the workshop was attended by 30 school educators who were all passionate about enriching the teaching of the curriculum with examples from climate science . These were mainly teachers , ranging from pre-service teachers to deputy heads and assistant principals , but also included representatives of curriculum authorities .
Although the online format presented some challenges , it allowed educators from across the country to take part . Finally , the workshop was joined by guests from National Computational Infrastructure ( NCI ) and the Australian Data Science Education Institute , who were seeking avenues to promote the use of data by school students .