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A Document Analysis of Climate Change Open Educational Resources for Nature of Science Representation: A Two-Paper Set

Climate change represents a critical global challenge, and educational resources play an important role in supporting climate change instruction in K–12 classrooms. As teachers increasingly rely on freely accessible instructional resources, it is important to understand how these materials represent Nature of Science (NOS), or what science is like and how scientific knowledge develops. This dissertation presents a two-paper study examining NOS representation in Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)-aligned climate change lesson plans curated by the Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN).

The first paper used semi-structured document analysis and an established NOS scoring rubric to examine 10 NOS aspects across 96 NGSS-aligned climate change lesson plans. Findings indicated that NOS representations were generally accurate but uneven across aspects and often implicit. Empirical and inferential NOS were the most frequently represented aspects, while scientific laws and scientific theories were among the least represented. Qualitative analysis further indicated that the lesson plans commonly portrayed science as evidence-based, socially relevant, and systems-oriented, but provided fewer opportunities for explicit reflection on how scientific knowledge is generated, evaluated, communicated, and revised.

The second paper examined the extent to which the same lesson plans treated climate change as a socioscientific issue (SSI). A literature-informed five-component SSI selection protocol identified 21 lesson plans (22%) as SSI-based and 75 as non-SSI. NOS score distributions were compared between the two groups using chi-square tests of independence and Cramer’s V effect sizes. No statistically significant differences in NOS representation were identified for any of the 10 NOS aspects. Social and cultural embeddedness demonstrated the largest observed association with lesson-plan classification, although the association was not statistically significant. Qualitative thematic analysis of the SSI-based lessons provided additional context for understanding how evidence evaluation, decision-making, stakeholder perspectives, and societal problem-solving created opportunities for NOS representation.

Taken together, the findings suggest that CLEAN climate change lesson plans provide meaningful opportunities for NOS and SSI-based instruction, but these opportunities are uneven and frequently implicit. The dissertation contributes to research on NOS resource evaluation, climate change education, SSI, and freely accessible instructional materials while highlighting the importance of evaluating how instructional resources support explicit NOS instruction, scientific literacy, and engagement with complex societal issues.