About this blog
Mark McCaffrey helped develop Climate Literacy: The Essential Principles of Climate Science which has been reviewed and endorsed by the US Global Change Science Program. Designed to aid teachers, policy makers, and the general public in understanding the intricacies of the climate system, the Climate Literacy principles present information about Earth's climate, the impacts of climate change, and approaches to preparedness and mitigation. More details ...
Mark is a co-founder of the Climate Literacy Network and attended the Inspiring Climate Education (ICE09) conference in Copenhagen to share insights about climate literacy efforts with colleagues from around the world. He is involved with the NASA funded Inspiring Climate Education Excellence (ICEE) project and the Climate LIteracy Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN), which is an NSF National Science Digital Library Pathway.
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Author Archives: mccaffrey
CLEAN Selected
CLEAN helps educators and the public find vetted materials that are scientifically sound and well presented, and ideally adds value to existing resources by correlating them to appropriate concepts and benchmarks and adding annotations on how the resources can be used to address important ideas and foster understanding. Continue reading
Not Just A River
Many of us, myself included, jump on jets, drive to work, use electrical devices powered primarily by burning coal or gas to make heat to turn turbines to generate steam to make electricity. Some large percentage of us in the United States and elsewhere in the collective one billion plus population who are the primary culprits causing climate change certainly feel moments of guilt about our negative impact on the planet as we live our modern, fossil fuel dependent lives. But the rub is, other than promoting greater awareness, better education and literacy and more effective policies, supporting clean energy and the like, we don’t know exactly what to do about “it”– the Great Disruption– in our everyday lives. Continue reading
Not a Pretty Picture
Jakobshavn/Ilulissat Glacier retreat since 1851. Credit: NASA image by Cindy Starr, based on data from Ole Bennike and Anker Weidick (Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland) and Landsat data. The May 24 Science Digest headline gets right to the point: … Continue reading
Tornado Time Lapse
The video above from NOAA data shows the surge of record tornado activity– 875 total– during the month of April of this year. According to the Washington Post, the previous April record was 267 set in 1974. While May has … Continue reading
Teachable Moments
In theory the new Energy Literacy framework that the U.S. Department of Energy is leading will be ready by the fall of 2011 and complement/add depth to the teachable moments of the challenge. Continue reading
Imagine Climate Change Circa 1990
But could the lesson also be that even well produced commercials with music by John Lennon and narration by Tom Cruise haven’t really make a dent in the problem? In addition to major technological breakthroughs, like solar nantennas that could be 95% efficient, we need to foster a much deeper level of literacy and informed decision-making throughout society, which is clearly very challenging in an era of ever shorter attention span and fear fatigue. Continue reading
Adopting Adaptation
Meanwhile, here in Boulder at my host institution, CIRES, a group of professionals involved with forming the Climate Preparedness Learning and Adaptation Network (CPLAN) have been meeting the past few days to sketch out what the network should look like. Continue reading
The Climate Curricular Conundrum
In the current American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) newsletter published by Second Nature, I have an article entitled “The Climate Curricular Conundrum.” Because ACUPCC and its signatories focus on higher education, the article focuses on Jon Miller’s … Continue reading
Forest, Chemistry & Climate
Above is a four minute video I’ve drafted as an attempt to weave together the 2011 International Year of Forests, headed by UNEP, and the 2011 International Year of Chemistry, led by UNESCO and IUPAC, the International Union of Pure and … Continue reading
Teens’ Tilted Climate Knowledge
Which takes us back to teens and the fact that they are open to admitting that they don’t know about many aspects of climate (and energy.) Rather than arguing opinions, which tends to be the way “adults” debate issues, teens may be more open to “teachable moments” if they are presented with them in an engaging way and relevant context. Continue reading
