Integrating climate science into the Maths curriculum — Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society

Integrating climate science into the Maths curriculum (#163)

Sanaa Hobeichi 1 2 3
  1. The University of New South Wales, Kingsford, NEW SOUTH WALES, Australia
  2. Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW , Sydney, NSW, Australia
  3. ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, UNSW, Sydney, NSW, Australia

Providing climate science examples to teach points in the high school Maths curriculum could help students to understand the quantitative elements of this science, including methods used to quantify the human contribution to climate change, and raise their awareness on options to mitigate climate change. Many Climate Science Teaching Resources (CSTR) are available for Maths teachers, and many more are likely to be developed in the future. However, whether these resources will be used by teachers depends on their effectiveness in improving Maths learning, and the ability of CSTR to provide solutions to teachers’ challenges. Examples of these challenges are being able to convert Maths knowledge from short-term memory to long-term memory and answering the perennial students’ question “How is this relevant to us?”. Tailoring CSTR to teachers’ needs is key to increasing their usefulness and popularity. I shed light on challenges and needs of high school Maths teachers and suggests CSTR ideas for addressing them. I suggest that these challenges need to be considered in the design of CSTR in order to improve students’ understanding of both Maths and climate science. The insights provided here are gained from many years of teaching the International Baccalaureate diploma and benefit from a research journey in climate science.

#amos2020