Initial Publication Date: October 8, 2020

Fundamental Concepts: Connecting Elementary Science Topics to Climate

Wondering how to connect your classroom content with climate science? The interdisciplinary nature of climate science creates opportunities to connect to a number of fundamental concepts that you teach about every day. It can be tricky however, to break down the often complex big ideas of climate science for elementary students. This page uses the relevant elementary fundamental concepts of the Next Generation Science Standards (Core Disciplinary Ideas, Crosscutting Concepts, and Nature of Science Practices) to show how connections can be made to the big ideas of climate science, ideas that the U.S. Global Change Research Program has identified as essential for every citizen to know (Climate and Energy Literacy Principles).

What is Climate and Energy Literacy?

According to the Climate Literacy Framework from the US Global Change Research Council, Climate Science Literacy is an understanding of your influence on climate and climate's influence on you and society.

According to the Energy Literacy Framework from the US Department of Energy, Energy Literacy is an understanding of the nature and role of energy in the universe and in our lives. Energy Literacy is also the ability to apply this understanding to answer questions and solve problems.

Climate Literacy  Broschure
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Provenance: USGCRP - online available
Reuse: This item is offered under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ You may reuse this item for non-commercial purposes as long as you provide attribution and offer any derivative works under a similar license.
Download the color booklet, Climate Literacy Framework by the US Global Change Research Program

Energy Literacy Booklet cover
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Provenance: from the US Department of Energy
Reuse: This item is offered under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ You may reuse this item for non-commercial purposes as long as you provide attribution and offer any derivative works under a similar license.
Download the color booklet, Energy Literacy Framework by the Department of Energy

Nature of Science: Connections to Climate

Understanding the nature of science is not only foundational to comprehending the body of knowledge that makes up climate science, but it also helps students appreciate how scientists have arrived at their conclusions, and how this knowledge is revised as new evidence is collected. These latter concepts can in turn help students recognize how scientists have arrived at the conclusion that human actions are contributing to global climate change. Students should understand the differences between hypotheses, laws and theories, and recognize that scientific concepts are based on rigorous testing, scientific evidence, and are part of a diverse system of voices that provide checks and balances to ensure these concepts represent our most current understandings.

NGSS includes eight major themes about the nature of science, which are all foundational concepts to understanding any of the Big Ideas in Climate and Energy Education. These are designed to be connected with the practices and cross-cutting concepts of the NGSS. The themes are as follows:

Engineering Design: Connections to Climate

The NGSS Engineering Design disciplinary core ideas outline strategies that students should understand and then apply to solve problems.  Because climate change is such an expansive and relevant problem with many opportunities for solutions, it can serve as an ideal subject for students to practice these strategies.  Designing ways to decrease energy or water use, use renewable energy, reuse materials, plant trees, and grow food from community gardens are all solutions that students can implement locally. Students can also engineer solutions that are meant to adapt to a changing climate, such as structures that hold up to increasing sea levels or storm intensity. Focusing on solutions is empowering for students.

"By asking questions and solving meaningful problems through engineering in local contexts (e.g., watershed planning, medical equipment, instruments for communication for the Deaf), diverse students deepen their science knowledge, come to view science as relevant to their lives and future, and engage in science in socially relevant and transformative ways." - National Research Council's Framework for K-12 Science Education

Crosscutting Concepts: Connections to Climate

Climate science is not confined to one discipline- it spans many disciplines, including physics, chemistry, biology, earth science, and engineering, to name just a few. Scientific research in the real world does not function in these defined buckets, and the Crosscutting Concepts in the NGSS help to scaffold ideas across disciplines. These seven Crosscutting Concepts serve as foundational concepts to better understand climate science at any age level and are integral to the science behind climate and energy topics:

Disciplinary Core Ideas of the NGSS: Connections to Climate

The Disciplinary Core Ideas provide the key concepts that students need in order to understand a discipline. To understand how the core ideas of NGSS provide foundational knowledge to the Climate and Energy Literacy Principles, refer to the tables below.  Relevant Disciplinary Core Ideas have been linked, by grade band, to the Climate and Energy Literacy Principles that they support.

Kindergarten

 

1st Grade

 

2nd Grade

 

3rd Grade

 

4th Grade

 

5th Grade




To see CLEAN resources that connect to these Disciplinary Core Ideas, check out our NGSS and CLEAN at a Glance page.