22.13 Making Connections

IS CLIMATE CHANGE THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE OF OUR TIME?

Background: Many people feel that climate change is the biggest challenge of our generation. While skeptics remain and large portions of the public are unconvinced, the evidence supporting a changing global climate continues to accumulate. Why aren’t people convinced by this evidence? Susan Hassol, a climate change communicator, provides a number of explanations. These include:

• The way climate change is presented in the media as a story with two sides.
• A general lack of science literacy among the public.
• A lack of understanding of the scientific process by the public.
• A fundamental misunderstanding between scientists and laypeople involving the use of language—essentially a communication issue.
• A psychological barrier that results when people are presented with something that frightens them.

Case: As a member of your campus environmental organization, you have been asked to participate in a workshop for teachers about the importance of science in education. Your presentation is limited to 30 minutes. Using one of the five preceding explanations as a starting point, and using global climate change as an example, create a presentation that will convince audience members that science is a necessary part of education, especially if we want to solve problems such as climate change.

Make sure that your presentation includes information from experts in the field, presented in both text form and as graphs and figures, and uses language that the average layperson will understand.