Tiptoeing around climate change in K-12 classrooms: Pollinator datasets as a strategy

Climate literacy in education is essential for a sustainable future because it can empower communities to take mitigative action. As climate change will most impact the younger generations, it is within K-12 education where students should become equipped with the skills to address this challenge. Many Colorado students and teachers feel unprepared to confront climate change despite climate change being a part of the state academic standards, with teachers often lacking resources and fearing accusations of political bias. This is especially true in rural areas where climate risk perception is minimized. Following a non-controversial teaching approach, one way to teach climate change is through community-generated plant and pollinator phenological datasets. Data literacy skills are lacking across the US, so coupling data literacy with climate literacy in secondary school science modules could address both needs. In this study, Colorado secondary science teachers implemented a phenology module guiding students to explore a participatory dataset that includes the phenophases of Bombus and four flowering plants from the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory—Delphinium nuttallianum, Erigeron speciosus, Helianthella quinquenervis, and Lupinus bakeri. Students analyzed these data, along with additional climate information, to construct their own hypotheses about how climate change is affecting phenological patterns in plants and bees. They constructed written scientific arguments explaining their observed patterns. With pre and post surveys, I investigated student motivation to tackle environmental issues. I will present results on how students respond to this curricular material and future directions that should be taken from this research.