Visualizing Global Climate Change: Web-Based Inquiry Science Environment

We investigated a Web-based Inquiry Science Environment (WISE) unit featuring interactive NetLogo visualizations of global climate change. The visualizations are scaffolded with the Knowledge Integration (KI) pattern, which elicits student ideas, adds new ideas, asks students to develop criteria, and then sort their ideas. The WISE Unit, Global Climate Change, allows students to consider what evidence is convincing to scientists. Students are introduced to paleoclimate data showing that the climate has been both warmer and colder. The unit helps students connect changes in global average temperature to the Earth’s energy balance. Middle-school students explored albedo, energy use, and carbon dioxide emissions as factors leading to climate change. The visualizations allowed students to test the impact of personal decisions -- such as eating meat or littering—on global climate. In the first version, we highlighted the role of energy transfer and transformation, resulting in better understanding of energy transfer. We refined the visualizations and scaffolding for the visualizations using student responses as data for evidence-based design. We introduced annotated screenshots of the visualizations and provided feedback on the accuracy of the mapping between type of energy and how energy was represented in the visualization. We added a pivotal case involving watching a sunray so students could isolate the energy transformations, and we connected albedo to familiar settings. We structured inquiry with visualizations by limiting the number of choices. The second version improved students’ understanding of energy transformation. These students made larger pretest-posttest gains in understanding of the role of energy transfer and transformation. By improving comprehensibility, adding pivotal cases, structuring experimentation to distinguish ideas, and reducing deceptive clarity, we strengthened the impact of the visualizations. Focusing student investigations in the second version allowed students to make more normative personally-relevant decisions related to their energy use. These findings show that middle school students can learn about complex systems when the curriculum is carefully designed. They underscore the importance of using evidence from student work to guide iterative refinement of instruction. They offer guidance for designers of science instruction, suggesting the value of the KI pattern and specifically the importance of structuring investigations to focus on distinguishing ideas.