TY - JOUR
T1 - Climate Change and Energy Technologies in Undergraduate Introductory Science Textbooks
AU - Yoho, Rachel A.
AU - Rittmann, Bruce
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors wish to acknowledge a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship for R.A.Y (#DGE-1311230), that indirectly funded this work by providing a graduate stipend. The fellowship was not awarded based on this work and did not directly fund this work. We thank Alexia Rudolph for textbook research assistance. R.A.Y acknowledges Drs César Torres, Sudeep Popat, Jennifer Richter, and Bina Vanmali. We thank the four textbook publishing companies and their representatives (to remain anonymous) for providing the materials generously for use in this research. We have provided a supplementary material in addition to the main text to supplement the information and results shown. This study maintains the anonymity of the textbooks, as textbooks were provided by publishers at no cost with full knowledge of this research. This work was submitted to the Arizona State University Institutional Review Board to treat these textbooks as anonymous research subjects, similar to the methods used for qualitative analysis of interviews. In this work, aggregate results are presented alongside examples named by discipline (often in parentheses). This approach eliminates any positive or negative endorsements of specific books, authors, and publishers. We believe that anonymity for the textbooks in this manuscript is the only way to provide results and disseminate our findings without appearing to endorse specific educational materials.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018, © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2018/8/18
Y1 - 2018/8/18
N2 - Global climate change and the implementation of energy technologies are among the most pressing issues facing society and the environment today. Related educational content spans the science disciplines. Through an analysis of introductory-level university textbooks from four major US publishers in Biology, Chemistry, and Physics, this study presents trends in terminology and content. As the defining terms, “global warming” and “climate change” are used nearly equally. However, the first location of a working definition for climate change appears earlier. Energy technologies, climate change, and related environmental issues are found, on average, on ≤4% of textbook pages, and variation is large among individual textbooks. Discipline-based trends exist, especially for the energy technologies presented. Addressed separately as a non-renewable, non-fossil fuel, nuclear energy is found on ≤1% of textbook pages and unfavorably represented. The discussion within these science disciplines has implications on introductory-level education, public perception of science, and informed citizenship.
AB - Global climate change and the implementation of energy technologies are among the most pressing issues facing society and the environment today. Related educational content spans the science disciplines. Through an analysis of introductory-level university textbooks from four major US publishers in Biology, Chemistry, and Physics, this study presents trends in terminology and content. As the defining terms, “global warming” and “climate change” are used nearly equally. However, the first location of a working definition for climate change appears earlier. Energy technologies, climate change, and related environmental issues are found, on average, on ≤4% of textbook pages, and variation is large among individual textbooks. Discipline-based trends exist, especially for the energy technologies presented. Addressed separately as a non-renewable, non-fossil fuel, nuclear energy is found on ≤1% of textbook pages and unfavorably represented. The discussion within these science disciplines has implications on introductory-level education, public perception of science, and informed citizenship.
KW - Undergraduate textbooks
KW - climate change
KW - fossil fuels
KW - nuclear energy
KW - renewable energy
KW - science education
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85046087695&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85046087695&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/17524032.2018.1454337
DO - 10.1080/17524032.2018.1454337
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85046087695
SN - 1752-4032
VL - 12
SP - 731
EP - 743
JO - Environmental Communication
JF - Environmental Communication
IS - 6
ER -