Teachers’ Strategies to Develop Students’ Decision Making Skills Using the Socioscientific Issue of Climate Change

The purpose of school science education is to equip young people with the understandings, skills and values to become scientifically literate citizens. We believe that school science education needs to develop in young people the ability to make informed evidence-based decisions about a range of scientific issues facing humanity. Foremost is the issue of climate change. Climate change is a socioscientific issue (SSI) that students need to be aware of. The aim of this chapter is, firstly, to present an overview of strategies and instructional models to promote effective decision-making about SSI such as climate change and, secondly, to outline the role of the classroom teacher in facilitating discourse about SSI. Thirdly, the chapter concludes with the outcomes of an empirical study that compared and contrasted the teacher strategies and behaviors exhibited by four year 10 teachers who taught climate change as an SSI, two of whom significantly improved their students’ decision-making skills. These two teachers developed a collaborative environment, linked SSI to their students’ lives, modelled open-minded behaviors, ensured that students knew and used content about the SSI, and were responsive to students’ questions continually prompting for alternative perspectives.