Categorising students' evaluations of evidence and explanations about climate change

Just as scientists evaluate explanations of climate change, students should also engage in critically evaluative practices when studying global warming. The purpose of the present study was to investigate middle school students' evaluations when they examined different explanations for the causes of climate change. We observed four distinct categories of evaluation in student explanations about how evidence texts related to climate change models: a) erroneous evaluation; b) descriptive evaluation; c) relational evaluation and d) critical evaluation. These findings allow us to better understand and recognise types of student thinking, so that we may be able to better implement instruction that promotes critical evaluation about climate change and other complex scientific topics, as is called for by recent science education reform efforts.