Teaching Psychology and Climate Change

The American Psychological Association (APA) has called for psychologists to become more involved in addressing climate change. One way to address this pressing issue is through curriculum. To this end, we describe an undergraduate course that we created and teach exclusively focused on the interface of psychology and global climate change. The course is a seminar structured around three broad themes: science and impacts, adaptation, and solutions. To support others developing curriculum in this area, we explain these themes and share the course organization and structure, along with our experiences in teaching it. We provide relevant examples of activities and resources in the context of the goals and outcomes of APA’s “Guidelines for the Undergraduate Psychology Major.” We discuss considerations of competence and interdisciplinarity in teaching on this issue. Finally, given the magnitude and significance of climate change, we consider experiential aspects of students in the course related to stress.

Download Full-text

Psychology and Global Climate Change: Addressing a Multi-faceted Phenomenon and Set of Challenges: Report of the American Psychological Association Task Force on the Interface Between Psychology and Global Climate Change

PsycEXTRA Dataset ◽

10.1037/e516562012-001 ◽

2010 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Global Climate Change ◽

Task Force ◽

Global Climate ◽

American Psychological Association ◽

American Psychological ◽

Association Task

Download Full-text

Measuring What Students Know: SNAP’s Guidelines and Suggestions for Assessing Goal 1 Content in Psychology

Teaching of Psychology ◽

10.1177/0098628320945113 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 47 (4) ◽

pp. 262-273

Author(s):

Jennifer L. W. Thompson ◽

Aaron S. Richmond ◽

Barika Barboza ◽

Jennifer Bradley ◽

J. Noland White ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Content Knowledge ◽

Working Group ◽

American Psychological Association ◽

National Assessment ◽

American Psychological ◽

Inappropriate Use ◽

Version 2.0 ◽

Undergraduate Psychology ◽

Psychology Major

Although many psychology departments and instructors are aware of the American Psychological Association Guidelines for the Undergraduate Psychology Major Version 2.0, they are often less aware of the means by which to assess student mastery of the recommended goals. Our purpose is to discuss general principles for assessment, offer a psychology learner taxonomy that aligns with Goal 1 of the Guidelines 2.0, and present a rubric for reviewing assessments. Goal 1 of the Guidelines 2.0 is based on content knowledge in psychology. Whereas most assessments allow for the measure of the mastery of content to different extents, the results of those assessments can be invalid due to the design or inappropriate use of the rubric. The working group at the Summit on National Assessment of Psychology addressed these issues and curated evidence-informed assessment exemplars designed to measure content knowledge in psychology.

Download Full-text