Unit 5: Synthesis: Literary Representation of a Grand Societal Challenge

Learning Goals:

Students will apply their knowledge of how scientists use data to communicate to a variety of audiences about the effects of climate change. Students will also apply their understanding of tools for effective communication.

Objectives:

By the end of this unit, students will be able to:

• summarize an effect of climate change (such as sea level rise or increase in global temperatures).
• describe the tools required to communicate climate science to a variety of audiences.
• describe the mode of presenting the climate science, considering ethos, pathos, and logos.

This activity uses a pedagogical tool called a gallery walk. Each poster will have a specific climate change-related concern, and the student groups will have to describe how the concern would be presented to a specific audience. For each type of audience, the student groups must be prepared to discuss specific examples of tools they would use (e.g. graphs, blogs, stories) and the best ways to present those tools, all while considering the pathos, ethos, and/or logos.

If the physical space allows, you can have posters set up that provide the audience types, and the students can report at each location.

Materials

• Five large sheets of paper (or enough whiteboard/chalkboard space for five groups)
• A different-colored marker for each group

Prior to Class

• Select the climate change-related concern you wish your class to address. A suggested list of climate change-related concerns that can be assigned include:
• Sea-level rise
• Sea surface temperature (SST) increases
• Increased global temperature
• Increased greenhouse gases
• Species migration patterns change
• Increased frequency of El Nino
• Longer summer seasons over the years
• Print out each of the bullets and attach to the top of the posters set up in the classroom as directions. You should modify this text to insert the climate change-related concern. You can download the Unit 5 Station Directions (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 16kB Mar20 16) here to modify and print out.
• Hang the poster-sized paper around the room, leaving enough space for a group of four to five students to congregate around each poster.

In Class

Start class by organizing the students into five different groups (we recommend small groups comprising four to five students each). You should explain the concept of a gallery walk to students before starting the assignment (find out more about gallery walks from Pedagogies in Action). Note: If you feel your class size/format is not amenable to a gallery walk, we encourage you to read through the "How this module was adapted" sections to see how this activity can be incorporated into large and/or online classes.

Assign each group to a different poster and direct the students to start working on that poster's particular problem. After 5 minutes, the groups should rotate to a new poster. Use a timer to signal time for the student groups to switch to the next one.

• Your group has been selected to describe [insert climate change-related concern] to the Philosophy Club at your university. Think about the different methods of communicating climate change science that we have covered over the past two weeks. How would you describe this issue to the Philosophy Club? (Be specific . . . simply saying "graphs," "blogs," or "short stories" is not detailed enough!) How would you convey the larger societal issue of climate change to the club?
• Your group has been selected to describe [insert climate change-related concern] to the Chemistry Club at your university. Think about the different methods of communicating climate change science that we have covered over the past two weeks. How would you describe this issue to the Chemistry Club? (Be specific . . . simply saying "graphs," "blogs," or "short stories" is not detailed enough!) How would you convey the larger societal issue of climate change to the club?
• Your group has been selected to describe [insert climate change-related concern] to your physician and his colleagues. Think about the different methods of communicating climate change science that we have covered over the past two weeks. How would you describe this issue to the physicians? (Be specific . . . simply saying "graphs," "blogs," or "short stories" is not detailed enough!) How would you convey the larger societal issue of climate change to the physicians?
• Your group has been selected to describe [insert climate change-related concern] to the local senior center. Think about the different methods of communicating climate change science that we have covered over the past two weeks. How would you describe this issue to the senior citizens? (Be specific . . . simply saying "graphs," "blogs," or "short stories" is not detailed enough!) How would you convey the larger societal issue of climate change to the senior citizens?
• Your group has been selected to describe [insert climate change-related concern] to a high school class. Think about the different methods of communicating climate change science that we have covered over the past two weeks. How would you describe this issue to the high school students? (Be specific . . . simply saying "graphs," "blogs," or "short stories" is not detailed enough!) How would you convey the larger societal issue of climate change to the students?

The last part of class will be used as a time to summarize the groups' ideas. Once the students return to their original poster, the group synthesizes comments and makes an oral report. You may want to direct this part of the activity to keep the class moving through each of the posters. The entire class should engage in discussion and address discrepancies between different group's communication plans.

This unit should be used to synthesize Units 1–4. You should not teach Unit 5 without first teaching Units 1–4.

Depending the class size and instructor preference, students may be assessed on their gallery walk contributions using the

Unit 5 Activity -- private instructor-only file

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Unit 5 Rubric -- private instructor-only file

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Module Summative assessment:

Connect data to fictional works

In the module summative assessment, students will analyze their graphs and interpretations, in addition to analyzing their classmates' graphs/blogs. They will identify the interactions of the different Earth spheres related to the climate change issues presented. In addition, they will reflect upon the connection of the climate data to fictional works. This should be assigned following the completion of Unit 5. We suggest allowing the students several days to complete this assessment.

Students will need access to Unit 2 blogs for the entire class through your course management system. If you are unfamiliar with how to make student blogs public to the class section, please contact the support desk at your institution. Students will read four student blogs and the associated graphs (each of the four will be a different data set from the one they created). As they are reading through the blogs (and recalling the blog they created), students should reflect on how these data are connected to the short story. Students will submit a written assignment, addressing the following:

• Climate change issues presented in the student blogs.
• The climate change issues presented in the fictional work.
• The connections of the data to the short story.
• Description of how the student blogs of climate change data and fictional works are used as tools to communicate climate change issues to different audiences, considering ethos, pathos, and logos.

Provide students with the Summative Assessment (Microsoft Word 25kB Mar20 16) handout that describes the activity. This assignment can be assessed using the

Summative Assessment Rubric -- private instructor-only file

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Examples of data analysis are found in the instructor materials for Unit 2. Examples of a rhetorical analysis can be found in Unit 3. We also provide two exemplary student assignments—these are for instructors only and should not be distributed to students.

• "Diary of an Interesting Year" student assignment -- private instructor-only file
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  "Diary of an Interesting Year" student assignment

  
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• "The Tamarisk Hunter" student assignment -- private instructor-only file
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  "The Tamarisk Hunter" student assignment

  
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Gallery Walks from Pedagogies in Action

Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC)

• Global Annual Temperature Anomalies from Land and Ocean Observations, 1880–2014
• Atmospheric Concentrations of CO₂ from Mauna Loa, Hawaii

National Centers for Environmental Information

• Quick links to climate and weather data sets
• Paleoclimatology data sets