Teaching science concepts relevant to climate change without getting lost in the complexity

Abstract

Teacher question : How does the teaching of climate change and sustainability fit into the teaching of the traditional content and skills of the core science strands? Many students need explicit teaching of core skills and content that slowly builds up their successful in senior (Years 12 and Context is there to provide engagement and opportunity for applying learning, but complex context that dominates the narrative of teaching can cause confusion for students with low literacy or poor background knowledge, and can take time away so that teaching of content and skills has to be rushed, which again makes it harder for many students. I love the idea of science teachers being drivers of social change for these issues but I want to teach these topics in a way that doesn’t disadvantage students who need us to slowly build up their confidence in core science skills and content. There is always a pull in “environmental issues” topics to go down tangents of politics and society more suited to a social studies classroom, leaving less room for teaching of science skills and content. Any ideas on how to incorporate these ideas without these issues would be amazing!