Earth2Class: An Innovative Strategy to teach Climate Change Education

Keywords: climate change education, Earth2Class, teacher professional development, broader outreach
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Friday
Session Start / End Time: 2/25/2022 03:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/25/2022 05:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 29

Abstract

The Earth2Class program at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University (E2C) is an innovative strategy for teaching about climate change. Each month, LDEO research scientists and others share a summary of their cutting-edge investigations with classroom teachers and high school students. Although E2C has been in existence since 1998, each program is unique in presenting new information from current investigations about Earth's changing climate, thereby giving the teachers new course content and tools, and inspiring students to consider careers in this field. Before the pandemic struck, workshops were only available to those who could get up early on a Saturday morning and get to the Lamont campus in Palisades, NY. Since then, programs have been presented via zoom, making them easily available anywhere and enabling us to bring in speakers from distant institutions. An archived version of the workshop is available on the E2C website, https://earth2class.org/site. As long as we use the zoom format, E2C participation is free. Participants receive a certificate showing 1.5 hours of professional development at the end of each session.

Scientists have been able to utilize E2C as an effective way to meet broader outreach requirements for research grants.