The global warming controversy
1. School/Organization, where the practice is collected: Instituto de Educação da Universidade de Lisboa.
2. Description
On-line analysis of the controversy surrounding "global warming" for 15-18 year-old students from science school subjects. The possible existence of climate change and anthropogenic global warming is a controversial issue for both society in general and the scientific community. This activity aims to promote an analysis on this theme. To do so, the following individual work is proposed:
• Viewing and analysis of the documentaries "An Inconvenient Truth" (2006) and "The Great Global Warming Swindle" (2007) which present opposing perspectives on the Global Warming controversy.
• Writing of a document of no more than two pages which: a) identifies the arguments and counter-arguments presented in the documentaries to support each of the positions; b) justifies the degree of confidence in the information presented in each documentary; c) tries to explain the existence of such different opinions on this problematic; d) presents some suggestions about how citizens should act when confronted with such different perspectives.
• Publication of the document produced in the respective forum of the on-line platform.
3. Assessment
☒ Yes
☐ No
| Criteria | Level 3 | Level 2 | Level 1 | Level 0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Identification of the arguments and counter- arguments presented in the documentaries | Identifies all the arguments and counter-arguments presented in the documentaries | Identifies most of the arguments and counter-arguments presented in the documentaries | Identifies some of the arguments and counter-arguments presented in the documentaries | Does not identify the arguments and counter-arguments presented in the documentaries |
| Justification of the degree of confidence in the information presented in each documentary | It provides a high- quality, reasoned justification of the reliability of the information presented in each documentary. | Provides some quality justification of the degree of reliability of the information presented in each documentary. | It provides poor quality justification of the degree of reliability of the information presented in each documentary. | It does not provide a justification regarding the quality of the degree of reliability of the information presented in each documentary. |
| Explanation of the very different opinions on the issue | Mobilises the reading of articles for the elaboration of the explanation, showing an excellent critical capacity. | Mobilises the reading of articles for the elaboration of the explanation, showing a good critical capacity. | Mobilises the reading of articles for the elaboration of the explanation, showing little critical capacity. | Does not mobilise the reading of articles for the elaboration of the explanation. The explanation has little or no quality. |
| Suggestions on how citizens should act when confronted with such different perspectives | It presents high-quality suggestions of citizens’ actions | It presents (with some quality) suggestions of citizens’ actions | It presents (with little quality) suggestions of citizens’ actions | It does not present suggestions of citizens’ actions or the suggestions don’t have quality |
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