DOI
https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2019.1610158

Summary
There is extensive evidence showing that the climate system is warming and human behavior is linked to the change. Despite increasing attempts to integrate climate change into school curricula, teachers have challenges in preparing and implementing climate change lessons. The study aims to look at (a) the kinds of wondering questions middle school students construct after they are engaged in a climate change activity called ‘It’s a Gassy World’ and (b) what teachers highlight in their reflections on these questions to improve their teaching. In this multi-case explorative study, the data comes from student artifacts, teachers’ written reflections, and semi-structured conversational interviews with teachers. A constant-comparative analysis of students’ wondering questions (N = 165) showed that the nature of the questions varies. These were grouped under three different categories: direct observation, interdisciplinary connections, and future projections questions. We then analyzed five teachers’ written reflections and interviews from a cultural historical activity theoretical perspective. This analysis revealed that teachers paid particular attention to certain tools (physical and conceptual), norms (epistemic and teaching), emotions, and division of labor routines in classrooms. We discuss how students’ wondering questions help teachers notice essential features of climate change learning such as spatiotemporal thinking.

Relevance for Complex Systems Knowledge
The article focus on teaching on climate change through brad understanding on how climate change occur in a complex system, covering both social and natural systems. From a simple experiment on CO2 levels in water and how its emission is dependent on temperature, students relate it to ongoing climate change and are provoked to wonder about possible effects on environment and society.

To study students questions, the article uses the KLEW chart with four columns: ‘What do I know?’ (K), ‘What have I learned?’, (L), ‘What is my evidence?’ (E), and ‘What are you wondering?’ (W), for student to fill in connection to the experiment. The chart provides opportunities to study how students relate to systemic issues of climate change.



In turn, the article studies the teacher responses to the students questions. This is done by using the CHAR-method (Cultural Historical Activity Theory) where students and teachers are considered as participants in an Activity System, where learning about climate change is the object and the outcome is a depper understanding of the challenges posed by climate change.



Thus, the article is highly relevant as it provides methods for a mutual learning process about complex, multidimensional and entangled systems.

Point of Strength
The strengths of the article is that it discover different types of systems thinking needed to understand climate change challenges, from student responses. Noting that emotions and political standpoints are important parts of the learning process, the researchers checked how teaching could change to also include such aspects. The CHAR-method appears as a useful tool to enter into discussions and reflections on the teacher-student interactions needed to facilitate learning.