Science Education and Outreach
We equip teachers with the knowledge and resources they need to accurately teach evolution, climate change, and the nature of science.
NCSE Lesson Sets
Climate Change
The five lesson sets below were developed with the help of practicing science teachers and tackle the most common and pervasive climate change misconceptions that students bring to the classroom. Contact us with feedback or questions.
Lesson Set 1 — Scientific Consensus: A Tsunami of Evidence
The five climate change core principles — It’s Real, It’s Us, It’s Bad, Experts Agree, and There’s Hope — are each addressed to provide students with overwhelming and definitive evidence that Earth’s climate is changing. This lesson set provides teachers with a powerful tool kit to give students the skills and knowledge to identify and understand accurate science regarding climate change.
Lesson Set 2 — Understanding Climate Modeling
Climate models are a critical tool used by scientists to project long-term trends based on past data and present understanding of climate systems. This lesson set guides students through an analysis of real-world climate data to understand how scientists generate models and make future projections.
Lesson Set 3 — Back to the Future: Climate Edition
Earth’s climate is constantly changing. Paleoclimatologists — scientists who study ancient climates before current technologies were available to take measurements — provide historical data trends as a baseline for comparison to contemporary climate trends. This lesson set explores how paleoclimate proxies such as ice cores, tree rings, and sedimentary analysis provide evidence for past climates.
Lesson Set 4 — Climate Change in Your Own Backyard
Understanding the complexity of climate change can be an extremely challenging endeavor for adults, much less for high school students. By studying climate change in the context of a student’s local community or region — often referred to as place-based learning — the science of climate change can become much more accessible. In this lesson set, students analyze the global, national, and then local impacts of extreme weather events.
Lesson Set 5 — Climate Super Solutions
Current climate change patterns will be affecting future generations for years to come. This climate change lesson set explores students' roles in mitigating climate change as well as adapting to life in a rapidly changing climate. In a lesson set meant to infuse students with hope, students investigate the economic, social, and environmental impacts of climate solutions and gain the confidence to take action in order to help counteract climate change.
Evolution
The five lesson sets below were developed with the help of practicing science teachers and tackle the most common and pervasive evolution misconceptions that students bring to the classroom. Contact us with feedback or questions.
Lesson Set One — The Origin of a Species
Speciation is the evolutionary process that results in new species. Understanding speciation allows scientists to understand how the tree of life developed over time. This lesson set features the speciation of squamates – scaled reptiles like lizards and snakes. Students investigate the genetic and environmental factors that led to limb reduction and examine how one suborder of this group, the Serpentes, flourished thanks to this adaptation.
Lesson Set Two: Good is Good Enough?
Evolutionary fitness – the measure of ability to survive to reproduce – is at the core of natural selection. However, natural selection can only operate within the confines of genetic variation found within a population. In this lesson set, students investigate how significant ecological change can result in dramatic speciation events by using an extensive collection of fossil evidence – horse teeth. Students will also use this primary evidence to understand why orthogenetic evolution is a discredited view.
Lesson Set Three: It’s Time to Lose the Ladder
The evolutionary tree of life is a complex, multi-branching entity. Both random and non-random processes lead to the evolution of new organisms over time. Students examine both artificial and natural selection to better understand the mechanisms involved in evolution. Additionally, this lesson set provides a primer for phylogenetic “tree-thinking.”
Lesson Set Four: No More Monkeying Around
Human beings are inherently curious about themselves. This lesson set focuses on the anthropological account of human origins. Students investigate the origins of Homo sapiens and our evolutionary relationship to the primate family Hominidae. Students also discuss examples of recent human evolution throughout recorded history and consider the variety of traits that humans acquired as a result of evolution and culture.
Lesson Set Five: The Road to Extinction
Extinction is a major feature of the history of life. This lesson set explores the relationships between extinction, evolution, and biodiversity. Students investigate mass extinctions through the extensive fossil record to better understand how current populations are adapting to human impacts. Additionally, students explore possible solutions to mitigate the adverse impacts on biodiversity that result from human activity.
Nature of Science
The five lesson sets below were developed with the help of practicing science teachers and tackle the most common and pervasive nature of science misconceptions that students bring to the classroom. Contact us with feedback or questions.
Lesson Set One — Science is a Way of Knowing
It’s imperative that all students have a basic understanding of the scientific process. In this lesson set, students gain insight into how science works and an understanding that the process of science is ongoing and that scientific analysis evolves as new evidence emerges. They also gain valuable skills in evaluating the validity of online resources and popular media content that pertains to scientific experimentation and study.
Lesson Set Two — Science is a Never-Ending Process
One of the scientific terms most commonly misunderstood by the public is the word theory. By investigating germ theory in this lesson set, students understand how a theory can change over time while still maintaining its scientific rigor and relevance. Additionally, by participating in a historical case study, students discard the common misconception of a linear, systematic scientific method as the only blueprint for achieving discovery.
Lesson Set Three — Science is an Inquiry-Based Process
This lesson set allows students to see the power of modeling as part of the scientific process. By using models, scientists are able to develop numerous hypotheses, make claims, and engage in inquiry-driven experimentation. Models are often used when the subject of interest is not readily manipulated or available for use in nature due to either scale or complexity.
Lesson Set Four — Science is About the Evidence
The practice of science is conducted in a cyclic way, with scientists working back and forth between pursuing exploration and discovery, assessing benefits and outcomes, and developing analysis and feedback. At the core of this process is evidence, against which ideas in science are constantly tested. This lesson set is intended to allow students to experience evidence in action and appreciate its importance to the scientific process.
Lesson Set Five — Science Can Make You Strong
One of the most essential challenges for high school science teachers is: How do you help students distinguish between sound science and unintentional misinformation or even blatant pseudoscience? This lesson set asks students to apply information and insights gained from the first four nature of science storylines to investigate an important current topic — the effectiveness of masks in preventing the spread of diseases.
These free NCSE Climate Change lesson sets are Selected-by-CLEAN. The Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN) uses a peer-review process to identify high-quality materials that align with the Climate and Energy Literacy Principles and the Next Generation Science Standards. Click the badge above to learn more.
