The Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN) pathway for NSDL is being developed. The primary audience is a broad one ranging from middle school students to college graduates. The goal of the CLEAN collaborative project is the assembly of a collection of approximately 500 authoritative, scientifically sound resources so that teachers, their students and the general citizenry may improve their knowledge of climate and its impact on society and enable them to make better informed decisions about energy use and stewardship of planet earth. The CLEAN pathway utilizes science literacy maps (strand maps) to aid users in finding needed resources and illustrate connections between concepts and how concepts build on one another. The resources are aligned with the AAAS Project 2061 Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy, the National Science Education Standards and, the NAAEE Excellence in Environmental education Guidelines for Learning. Teleconference-online workshops are helping teachers and citizens learn to use the resources. An online community using Web 2.0 social networking tools to promote collaboration, interactivity and knowledge sharing among educators, experts and enthusiasts is being facilitated.
This project is receiving co-funding under the Dear Colleague Letter: Climate Change Education to support the development of NSDL efforts directly related to climate science.
The Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN, http://cleanet.org) project has developed a peer-reviewed, online, free collection of educational resources on climate and energy topics, provided scaffolding to teaching these topics, and has built and facilitated a professionally diverse community working to build climate and energy literacy among citizens of the US and abroad. Intellectual Merit: In support of this effort the CLEAN team developed review criteria for learning activities, videos, visualizations, short demonstrations/experiments, and units/modules that address scientific accuracy, instructional effectiveness, and technical quality, and a process for identifying and reviewing these resources involving educators and scientists. Technical infrastructure was developed to support and document the review process and the cataloging of resources. Climate and energy topical vocabulary was developed and appropriate tagging of resources enables effective collection searches. Broader Impacts: The CLEAN project provided professional development for secondary level teachers (grades 6-12) and undergraduate faculty focused on increasing educators content knowledge of climate and energy science and their awareness and use of CLEAN resources. The professional development for secondary level teachers included nine 2-hour interactive webinars focused on climate or energy topics and facilitated by a scientist and educator with appropriate expertise. The professional development for undergraduate faculty included four 2-week (16 hours) online workshops focused on the climate and energy topics. The workshops included talks from content experts and focused on the participants developing activities that would enable their teaching a climate or energy principle. The CLEAN project also facilitates the CLEAN Network, a professionally diverse community committed to improving climate and energy literacy locally, regionally, nationally, and globally and to enable responsible decisions and actions. Key Features Currently Available in the CLEAN Portal A Collection of Reviewed Educational Resources The CLEAN Collection has more >580 resources including teaching activities, videos, visualizations, and demonstrations/experiments on climate and energy topics for grades 6-16 reviewed by practicing educators and scientists. Each resource is annotated with information about its science, pedagogy, technical quality, and teaching tips, and is aligned with the Climate and Energy Essential Principles, AAAS Project 2061 Benchmarks, and NAAEE Environmental Education Guidelines. Multiple search options include and open-text search and faceted searches by climate and energy topic, resource type, grade level, data use, regional focus climate and energy literacy principles, and AAAS benchmarks. The CLEAN Collection includes maps of climate and energy concepts based on the AAAS Project 2061 Benchmarks, which help teachers connect science benchmarks with CLEAN educational resources. Guidance in Teaching Climate and Energy Science These pages offer background information on the big ideas in climate and energy that are drawn from the original Climate and Energy Literacy Principles. They provide a summary of each principle, acknowledge possible challenges for educators, and suggest instructional approaches for each grade level, and link to relevant teaching resources from the CLEAN collection. The CLEAN community The CLEAN Network, a group of over 430 individuals representing networks of climate and energy literacy stakeholders and representing over 20 professions and 60 professional societies, shares ideas, resources, and experience, and leverage activities and expertise through an active email list and weekly teleconferences (Tuesdays 1pm ET). The CLEAN Network is open to all. The CLEAN Facebook page provides a vehicle for timely updates on news and events. CLEAN Resource Developers can submit resources to the CLEAN review process to be considered for inclusion in the Collection. CLEAN Partners can bring CLEAN resources to their own web pages through the use of the CLEAN Widget and CLEAN search links, and can engage in the CLEAN review process for resources on climate and energy topics important to their communities and partners.
