The Inspiring Climate Education Excellence (ICEE) project was a professional development program designed to help educators teach climate science within a variety of pedagogical contexts. Building upon a national needs assessment, ICEE offerings included face to face workshops, online graduate courses, webinars, videos, learning resources and informational resources. Community-initiated innovations have included a climate fiction book club, forum, and new high-production value webinars.
ICEE addresses important climate science content along with the pedagogical skills necessary for effective instruction. While effective climate change education requires that teachers understand the content of climate science, it also requires teachers to bridge the science content with effective pedagogy. Pedagogical issues related to effective climate change education include aligning interdisciplinary climate science with existing science curricula, anticipating student misconceptions, and being prepared to address public controversy around climate change in the classroom. Educators have implemented new instruction with the support of climate scientists, master teacher coaches and STEM graduate students.
Part of the ICEE legacy is the Climate Science Academy.
Videos
ICEE: Susan Buhr
How do you deal with controversy over climate education? Susan Buhr gives an overview on the principles of climate education as well as some tips for how to plan for responding to disagreement or misunderstanding while teaching climate science.
ICEE: Amy Wagner
Why is abrupt climate change an important topic of study? In this lecture, Amy Wagner gives a brief lesson on abrupt climate change, including what defines it and how climate scientists study it.
ICEE: Mark McCaffrey
In this lecture, Mark McCaffrey goes over a brief introduction to climate literacy and understanding how climate science and climate education affect your own life.
ICEE: Kim Trenbath
Kim Trenbath combines her science and education background in this lecture in order to find how to teach students about Earth's energy balance and other science and climate education concepts.
ICEE: Cheryl Manning
A big part of effective climate and science education is building effective curriculum. Cheryl Manning gives her lecture on curriculum development and implementation for effective climate education.
ICEE: Baylor Fox-Kemper
CIRES Fellow Dr. Baylor Fox-Kemper goes over the basics of climate vs. weather, climate variability and how maritime and continental climates differ.
ICEE: Pieter Tans
How do we know that the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide is connected to human activity? In this lecture, Pieter Tans gives an overview on the history of the science and modeling on the subject that gives us necessary perspectives for studying carbon dioxide.
ICEE: Steven Nerem
The Earth is warming differently in different areas. Specifically, the Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the globe. Watch CIRES Fellow Dr. Steven Nerem's lecture on modern day sea level change and satellite technology.
ICEE: Jim White
What does the past tell us about Earth's climate future? Check out Jim White's lecture on paleoclimatology and how we can use our knowledge on past patterns to predict how Earth's climate will change.
ICEE: Lisa Dilling
In this lecture, CIRES Fellow Dr. Lisa Dilling goes over the basics of geoengineering and how we can use these concepts to learn about and interact with our climate.
ICEE: Walt Meier
CIRES data scientist Dr. Walt Meier gives an overview on climate modeling in this lecture. How can we predict the future of Earth's climate if we can't predict Earth's weather?
ICEE: Waleed Abdalati
What role do satellites play in understanding climate change? What data is reliable for understanding climate patterns? Waleed Abdalati goes over this and more in this ICEE lecture.
Susan Buhr: Introduction
Susan Buhr introduces a series of presentations from expert scientists given during the 2012, Inspiring Climate Education Excellence (ICEE) Workshop.