Science teachers in K-12 school systems play critical roles in educating our youth about the severity, mechanisms, and impacts of global climate change, as well as about amelioration strategies. This project involves collaboration among two minority-serving institutions, a NASA partner, and a NASA-funded climate change research university to help prepare pre-service STEM teachers to teach climate-change science. A competent climate-change education team consisting of science educators, environmental scientists, and NASA scientists will be established, and will develop effective teaching and learning modules.

Practice modules will be used across a spectrum of education and science courses to teach pre-service teachers about climate change. The modules will be problem-based, student-centered, and format-diversified. They will infuse NASA's Earth & climate data and models into a revised curriculum that makes use of internet data capture and interpretation, field courses, research internships, workshop seminars, and group debates to deliver the climate-change science to pre-service teachers. Training of pre-service teachers will be validated by their practice teaching of the Earth and climate science in K-12 school classrooms. Two hundred more pre-service teachers capable of teaching the science of climate and climate change will be prepared through the project period and more will be trained by continuously implementing the problem-based, student-experienced teaching and learning modules.