Climate Change in Chile’s School Science Curriculum

Abstract

Climate change is considered one of the greatest threats to human and natural ecosystems. In the search of options for action from science education, this paper aims to analyze the Chilean science curriculum to understand and act upon the socio-environmental climate change emergency. We developed a content analysis of curriculum documents, focusing on climate change, curriculum integration, and climate action. We explored 15 Chilean science and general curriculum documents for nine different school subjects. By understanding curriculum documents as a critical aspect to promote an educational response to climate change, we evidence that, even though only 5% of all learning goals are explicitly connected to climate change, there are opportunities to promote an integrated curriculum on climate change. Activities in the Chilean curriculum regarding climate change are mainly linked to concepts such as sustainability and biodiversity, and climate action from a critical approach of scientific literacy is primarily promoted in the last two years of schooling. This unbalanced science curriculum throughout all levels might be producing potential tensions in pedagogical practices about climate change education.

Socioscientific Issues and COVID-19: Responding to Curriculum Reform through Action Research

“…Each offered distinct possibilities (Fuchs & Tan, 2022;Bencze et al, 2020); however, in our context, Three Visions of Scientific Literacy (3-VSL) framework was chosen. The 3-VSL is a succinct and flexible framework that foregrounds SSI integration in myriad settings (Fuchs, in press;Harding & Fuchs, 2021;Rasa et al, 2022;Salinas et al, 2022). Regarding the BC curriculum, the 3-VSL highlights what a push toward critical SSI engagement can look like while still recognizing the importance of foundational conceptual knowledge encountered in most science classes (Figure 1).…”

An Interdisciplinary Practical Project for Preservice Science Teachers: Visualizing Climate Change Based on Systems Thinking

“…CC education and the methods used to teach CC vary internationally and across disciplines, but there is consensus that CC must be addressed through an interdisciplinary framework of understanding. 10 pedagogic activities such as the construction of concept maps, 11 simple experiment demonstrations, 12 and playing TED-Ed videos. 13 Research related to CC education has driven innovations in its assessment model, 14,15 which primarily encompasses assessment of knowledge, skills, literacy, and confidence.…”

“…Research under the theme of climate change (CC) covers a wide range of disciplinary courses such as Geography, Engineering, Physics and Chemistry, with a focus on CC knowledge, willingness to act and mitigation behaviors. CC education and the methods used to teach CC vary internationally and across disciplines, but there is consensus that CC must be addressed through an interdisciplinary framework of understanding . In addition, teachers have utilized the 5E teaching model or remote online demonstrations to implement pedagogic activities such as the construction of concept maps, simple experiment demonstrations, and playing TED-Ed videos .…”