A Taste of Climate Change presenterar en samlad översikt av hur klimatfrågan synliggörs i Malmö universitets grundutbildningar. Genom en kombination av riktade sökningar, manuell textanalys och intervjusamtal med programrepresentanter vid alla fem fakulteter visar kartläggningen att klimatrelaterat innehåll ofta förekommer indirekt, ojämt och beroende av enskilda lärares eller studenters initiativ.

Rapporten identifierar tre centrala mönster: en splittrad och osystematisk klimatförståelse, begränsad integrering av omställningens samhälleliga dimensioner, och otydliga vägar för studenter att utveckla klimatrelaterad handlingskompetens. Samtidigt framträder en vilja inom fakulteterna att stärka området.

Kartläggningen erbjuder ett kunskapsunderlag för fortsatt utveckling av klimatrelaterat lärande inom Mau och presenterar rekommendationer för att stärka både den vetenskapliga grunden och de professionsspecifika perspektiven. 

A Taste of Climate Change presents a consolidated overview of how climate issues are made visible within Malmö University’s undergraduate programmes. Using targeted searches, manual text analysis, and interviews with programme representatives across all five faculties, the mapping shows that climate-related content often appears indirectly, unevenly, and is largely dependent on individual teachers’ or students’ initiatives.The report identifies three central patterns: a fragmented and unsystematic understanding of climate issues, limited integration of the societal dimensions of climate transition, and unclear pathways for students to develop climate-related action competence. At the same time, there is a clear willingness within the faculties to strengthen this area.The mapping provides a knowledge base for continued development of climate-related learning at Mau and offers recommendations to reinforce both the scientific foundation and the profession-specific perspectives.

In the Anthropocene, there is a significant need for new ways to educate about science and environmental problems, including climate issues. This article explores Swedish teacher students' discussions as they envision their future roles as science teachers in the light of the Anthropocene. At the beginning of their science teacher education, the teacher students are not fully immersed in the established discourses of the educational system as in-service teachers. In this study, we consider how these teacher students' 'fresh eyes' bring views of how knowledge (especially chemistry-related knowledge) matters in education and teaching. Through a lecture that centred planetary boundaries and the Great Acceleration as representations of some main scientific models in the field, the teacher students were introduced to the concept of Anthropocene. Five focus group discussions followed this introduction. Thematic analysis reveals how the acquired knowledge of the introductory lesson challenges the students to express 'matters of concern' differently: partly considering a personal, everyday level and partly reformulating their role as future science teachers. The interrelation of these positions is also a concern for the concluding discussion. Furthermore, the article discusses these results as both concerns and possibilities for science education, including science teacher education.

The urgent and contemporary challenges of the Anthropocene confront science education and the historical period in which science education has developed. Engaging with this confrontation, the article turned to experienced chemistry teachers in a case study by exploring how they approach school chemistry knowledge in the Anthropocene. Focus group discussions among experienced upper secondary chemistry teachers were analysed to address this aim. Five chemistry teachers deeply immersed in the chemistry discipline discussed chemistry education in the context of the Anthropocene. The participating teachers are experienced with international (Diploma Programme of International Baccalaureate) and national (Swedish) chemistry curricula. The analyses showed that through chemistry knowledge, the teachers mediate conflicting emotions for their students to engage with the challenges of the Anthropocene. Furthermore, realising the entanglements of chemistry with other systems, school chemistry knowledge is viewed as a prerequisite and a central tool for engaging with the ethico-socio-political challenges of the Anthropocene. The article discusses the findings as perspective-generating results, regarding taken-for-granted assumptions on chemistry education and selective traditions.

Allt oftare omnämns att planetens tillstånd befinner sig i en ny tidsepok; Antropocen – människans tidsålder. Förutom den geologiska lydelsen pekar tillståndet även på det paradigmskifte i tänkande mänskligheten nu befinner sig i. Vår färdväg definieras som alltmer akut ohållbar. Från ett samlat vetenskapssamhälle framförs nu nödvändigheten av att på kort tid åstadkomma omvälvande förändringar, i en omfattning vi tidigare inte skådat. I det sammanhanget lyfts också ofta utbildningens centrala roll. I den här artikeln lutar vi oss främst mot den franska filosofen Bruno Latours resonemang om de konsekvenser antropocen har för människans behov av relationsskapande och tillhörighet. Eller formulerat som en utmaning att konfronteras med i undervisningen: Hur kan undervisningen skapa relationer med ”det mer än mänskliga” där människan utgör en integrerad del i biosfärens levande och materiella processer? Med hjälp av tre konkreta exempel från två skolor och med teori och analytiskt fokus hämtat från pragmatiska perspektiv på kommunikation, utforskar vi Latours efterfrågan av ”The terrestrial”. I den argumentativa texten visar vi hur detta kan identifieras i termer av öppna naturmöten, i relationsskapande och i demokratiska processer, vilka synliggör hur vi människor är sammankopplade med biosfären. I artikeln pekar vi också på några didaktiska riktningsgivare vilka kan vara till hjälp för lärare att skapa en undervisning som möjliggör för det omedelbara naturmötet, öppnar för det relationella utrymmet och stödjer genomlevandet av demokrati som en form av liv. 

Truth, Trust and Temporality: climate communication in times of emergency

Introduction

The importance of climate education is increasingly emphasized in relation to the addressed social transformation (IPCC, COP 26). There is a pronounced need for new ways to communicate climate issues and science to invite creative ways of thinking, and new stories of the future. Hence, there is a need to study how climate change takes shape in different contexts and groups, to better understand how environmental sciences are used in climate communication (Corner, et.al. 2017).  An interesting entrance to this, is how social movements of environmental activists communicate about the climate crises.  Since 2018 new social movements of activists addressing the climate and ecological crises has rapidly grown (e.g. Friday For Futures, and Extinction Rebellion “XR”). This study rests on the assumption that the different ways we live and act, also relates to what we know and how we experience the world around us. With inspiration of Barad’s (2007) Agential Realism this study explores discourses of phenomena through “agential cuts” by applying a diffractive analysis to actions of XR.

Research Questions

How may agential cuts make nourishing understanding of new ways in communication of climate and social change, from a grassroots movement as Extinction Rebellion?

o   In what way might these results inform and be relevant to formal education?

Methodology

Creating knowledge about the climate crises involves more than education of natural and social sciences. This means being attentive to the ways in which our knowledge and the material dimensions of the world around us, the social orders we live by, and the normative values we share are all intertwined (Barad, 2007). In a diffractive analysis it is the relational result that are of interest.  Accordingly, exploring agential cuts involves looking for contrasts and connections, and is not about representation or classification. Barad (2007) points out that, close attention is paid to detail in a diffractive analysis, to the intra-actions and to the possibilities for new ideas to evolve. The empirical data consists of texts, interviews, course material and field observations from XR's actions during 2021, collected with respect to the ethical principles of research.

Findings

The initial findings discuss how generative agential cuts through phenomena as; “time”, “truth” and “trust”, create assemblages of different understanding. As an example, time generate different meaning of the urgency or emergency of climate change due to temporalities of time. Anthropocene, term of office government, planetary boundaries, tipping points are some of these temporalities giving different meaning of the climate crises in relation to truth and trust.

Conclusion & Recommendation for theory and practice

How we allow ourselves to see the world in new ways can be crucial in creating opportunities to address the challenges posed by climate change. Attention of how we understand the world, may create attention of values, inspiration, and visions to create new stories for the future.

References

Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the universe halfway: Quantum physics and the

entanglement of matter and meaning. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Corner, A., Shaw, C. & Clarke, J. (2017). Communicating Environmental and Sustainability Science - Challenges, opportunities, and the changing political context. A Knowledge Report for Mistra. Oxford: Climate Outreach.

Haraway, D. (2017). Staying with the trouble. Making Kin with the Chthulucene London: Duke University Press.

The Anthropocene makes visible the global challenges we are facing by highlighting the state of the planet, the human impact on Earth systems, and our unsustainable ways of living. Considering chemistry and chemistry education in relation to the Anthropocene provides an opportunity to challenge and rethink chemistry education. We utilized the concept Bildung towards self-determination, participation, and solidarity, which takes students as active participants in public debates in the process of democracy. In this study, we turn to pre-service teachers as a part of this rethinking process since such attempts start with teachers, even with teacher training. In this study, we utilize the transdisciplinary perspectives of pre-service upper secondary Science Studies teachers and aim to investigate their views on why, what, and how to teach in and about chemistry in relation to the Anthropocene. Focus group interviews were conducted with three groups of participants. Initial findings of thematic analysis revealed the themes, such as, teachers as citizens, the Anthropocene and transdisciplinarity, possible obstacles while integrating the Anthropocene in chemistry lessons.  

Given the state of our planet in relation to human impact on the nature, the Anthropocene makes visible the global challenges we have been facing and unsustainable ways we are living in. Even though the scientific work in relation to Anthropocene is highly dependent on chemistry concepts, chemistry education is weakly connected to environment, society, nature and philosophy of science in its current state. Instead, instructional approaches still tend to introduce fundamental chemistry concepts in a quite isolated way. Even though there seems to be an increase in context-based approaches, there is a strong need for ecological, ethical, and philosophical framing. This contribution is based on a developing PhD project, which aims to reconceptualize chemistry education in the Anthropocene. In order to address this aim, several studies are being developed. One of these studies focuses on science teachers’ views on teaching and didactic questions in relation to the Anthropocene. In this contribution, preliminary findings will be presented. 

Over several decades, there have been many calls to transform chemistry education in order to promote learning and engaging students in chemistry. For example, conceptual understanding research gave its place to developmental approaches, namely, learning progressions. However, a lot of researchers stated the need for context-based approaches to make chemistry education more meaningful and relevant for students. Socio-scientific issues (SSI) oriented chemistry education, for example, can be considered as a contextual framing. However, this approach tended to offer more things to know, instead of providing a context for the students to engage in critical discussions about ecological, economic, and societal dimensions (Gilbert, 2016) of chemical pursuits. In consequence, this contribution aims to provoke a discussion on how chemistry education can be reframed in the Anthropocene and problematize systems thinking as a way of the Anthropocene aware chemistry education. It is argued that there is a need for rethinking chemistry education in the complex societies stemming from a noticeable human impact on chemical, biological, and geological systems in the Earth (Mahaffy, 2014). Acknowledging that human factor is responsible from the changes in the Earth systems more than before, we are being driven to an uncertain and a complex future (Guyotte, 2020; Stratford, 2019). Considering the role of chemistry in the global challenges, chemistry education is suggested to adopt a humanized approach including the role of human activity, socio-scientific issues, benefits-costs-risk analysis of chemical activities, e.g. by utilizing a cross disciplinary approach (Zowada et al., 2019). In addition, involving in chemical pursuits as scientists or citizens, requires taking quality of life and preserving environment into consideration (Sjöström & Talanquer, 2018). 50 In this presentation, systems thinking is problematized as a way of addressing global challenges through chemistry education and conceptualized as a way of acting on material world through sustainability perspective and decision-making processes (Mahaffy, Matlin, Whalen, & Holme, 2019). It is aimed to develop knowledge through the questions which living in a complex, uncertain era made visible: How can chemistry education be reconceptualized in the Anthropocene? How can systems thinking be infused in chemistry education?

This paper aims to discuss complexity as a key feature for understanding the role of science knowledge in environmental and health contexts – a core issue in Science|Environment|Health pedagogy. Complex systems are, in principle, not predictable. In different contexts, ephemeral mechanisms produce different, sometimes completely unexpected results. The “art of decision making” in complex contexts is to take scientific knowledge into account, but to interpret its meaning in terms of concrete complex contexts. This is illustrated by four empirical studies on Science|Environment|Health issues, presented midway through this paper. The findings underscore the importance of introducing complexity issues into science education. Not only are all the grand health and environmental challenges of our times highly complex, but there is also evidence that introducing complexity into science education may motivate many students for science learning and change practice in science classrooms. Truly appreciating the role of complexity in Science|Environment|Health pedagogy is likely to raise future citizens who understand the delicate relation between predictability and uncertainty and to empower them for wise decisions about societal and personal well-being.

Science and technology have been of crucial importance for the development of humanity. Throughout history, new knowledge and technological innovations have made it possible to raise the standard of living for new generations in different parts of the world. However, this has also led to an unfortunate acceleration in the use of the world’s natural resources. Nevertheless, scientific and technological findings are often promoted as the drivers of development in our societal and economic systems.