Atmospheric Science and Climate Literacy Workshop November 2007 UCAR Center Green Auditorium

Session 1: 8:30 – 10:15 am - Overview and Orientation on Atmospheric Science and Climate Literacy

8:30 am Welcome, Workshop Charge, Definition of Atmospheric Science and Climate Literacy, and Relationships to Other Earth Science Literacy Efforts – Roberta Johnson and John Snow

Welcome Who’s here? –~55 in-person participants including leading scientists, educators, policy specialists –~40 On-line participants Participating via blogs during breakouts and plenary –Video conference participants from NSF and Goddard –Volunteer facilitators and online participant liaisons

Workshop Charge Formulate and build consensus for the Essential Principles and Fundamental Concepts that comprise a framework for Atmospheric Science and Climate Literacy

A Definition Atmospheric Science and Climate Literacy  the scientific knowledge and understandings an individual must have to meaningfully communicate about Earth’s atmosphere and climate and make informed and responsible decisions –For organizational and practical purposes, the required knowledge and understandings are expressed in terms of a few overarching Essential Principles and a limited number of supporting Fundamental Concepts

Relationships to Other Earth Science Literacy Efforts Earth System Literacy –Ocean Literacy –Climate Literacy –AMS Education Program: “Earth's Climate System Paradigm” –Overarching Earth System Literacy Strategy –Atmospheric Science and Climate Literacy

8:45 am – Building a Framework for Earth System Literacy – Jill Karsten 9:15 am – Reflections on Earth System Science & Environmental Literacy – Susan Buhr 9:45 am – The Ocean Literacy Plan - Sarah Schoedinger 10:00 am – Plan for Session 2 Essential Principles Breakout Groups and Logistics – John Snow and Roberta Johnson

10:00 am Plan for Session 2 Essential Principles Breakout Groups and Logistics – John Snow and Roberta Johnson

Essential Principles  “Big Ideas” Is a pithy statement that captures the essence of a system Organizes more detailed concepts into a coherent whole Stands alone  Would never fit “under” another concept or principle Each Essential Principle …

Fundamental Concepts  “Important Details” Supports one or more Essential Principles Represents foundational knowledge without which it would be impossible to understand an Essential Principle and possibly even other Fundamental Concepts Can be deconstructed (unpacked) into sub-concepts that must be introduced at age- and developmentally appropriate times (grade levels) in order to lead to an understanding of the fundamental concept Is not an example or simple factoid Each Fundamental Concept …

1 Example from Ocean Literacy 1 The Earth has one big ocean with many features a The ocean is the dominant physical feature on our planet Earth—covering approximately 70% of the planet’s surface. There is one ocean with many ocean basins, such as the North Pacific, South Pacific, North Atlantic, South Atlantic, Indian and Arctic. b An ocean basin’s size, shape and features (islands, trenches, mid-ocean ridges, rift valleys) vary due to the movement of Earth’s lithospheric plates. Earth’s highest peaks, deepest valleys and flattest vast plains are all in the ocean.

Strawman for ASCL 1 Earth is surrounded by a thin atmosphere whose composition and structure has coevolved with all living things a The atmosphere is a mixture of gases (commonly called "air") containing approximately 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen. Other important gases include argon, carbon dioxide, ozone and methane. The atmosphere also contains a highly variable amount (averaging about 1%) of water vapor. b Earth's atmosphere consists of a series of layers defined by their chemical and thermal characteristics. From the surface up, these are the troposphere (which includes the planetary boundary layer), the stratosphere, the mesosphere, and the thermosphere.

Practical Considerations Targets K-12 (formal and informal) Competition for classroom time –6 to 8 Essential Principles (7 = “ideal”) –25 to 30 Fundamental Principles (4 to 5 for each Essential Principle) –Mantra for the workshop: Less is more!  fewer are better Rough parallelism to the 7 Essential Principles for Ocean Literacy??? Earth System approach  inherently interdisciplinary; ties to ocean, solid earth, life

Instructions for Breakout Groups For Session 2 “Essential Principles Breakout groups”, participation is assigned 6 groups of ~10, each to come up with set of candidate Essential Principles in 90 min –Facilitator and Online Participant Liaison (OPL) assigned to each group –Select a Recorder from participants who will be responsible for recording EPs and advocating in plenary –Recorder passes ppt with EPs to OPL, who will get them on computer for afternoon report outs and plenary session –Recorder also transcribes EPs to large Post-its for discussion after lunch

Essential Principals Breakout session: Breakout session: Recorder: Recorder:

Final Step ► At the end of the breakout session, the Recorder should save this file, using the following naming convention: ascl_breakout_.ppt eg., ascl_breakout_2c.ppt ► Once you have saved the file, please transfer it to your session’s OPL, who will upload it for use in the following plenary.

In the afternoon, we will discuss sets of candidate EPs from 6 groups and come to consensus  working draft of framework of 6-8 EP’s Choice of breakout groups in Wednesday sessions on FCs, with proviso that we may need to do some balancing of groups –We will run through full set of EPs twice, so that each participant will have a chance to contribute to FC discussion in up to 4 EP breakouts Instructions for Breakout Groups, cont.

EP2 FCs7 EP1 FCs7 EP4 FCs7 EP3 FCs7 EP7 FCs8 EP6 FCs8 EP5 FCs8 Set of Consensus EPs Sessions 3-4 EP5 FCs EP2 FCs EP7 FCs EP1 FCs EP6 FCs EP4 FCs EP3 FCs Set of consensus FCs Sessions 8-9 EP2 EP3 EP4 EP5 EP6 EP1 Session 2 assigned EP7 FCs6 EP6 FCs6 EP5 FCs6 EP2 FCs5 EP1 FCs5 EP4 FCs5 EP3 FCs5 choice

Logistics Rooms Facilitators stand up and show signs Breakout codes on name tag

Break!