A new challenge in storytelling

I'm about to begin my spring term of teaching, and I find myself wondering:

Which stories do I tell?

How should I tell them?

My science class for non-majors is an "issues" course. That is, we look at current issues in science of interest to the general community. Energy, climate change, that sort of thing. Back in the day, I used to present both sides of the global warming debate. I thought I had to, you know, to be fair. I don't know why - maybe to overcompensate for my liberal nature. As I became increasingly uncomfortable with this, I began to minimize the debate itself, and just present mechanism, facts and numbers. I addressed the debate, but only briefly.

In 2005, after a break of a few years, I taught the course again. Just beforehand, I went to a seminar where I had the opportunity to discuss the issue of what to present in class with real climate scientists. The other instructors (non-climate scientists like me) and I wanted to know what to do about the other side of the debate. We all felt some discomfort not presenting both sides. The climate scientists felt no such discomfort. "Present IPCC," they said, "this is the consensus of the scientific community." A fine point, I thought.

I presented the IPCC conclusions. I talked about how climate modeling was done. I showed Hanson's famous graph and explained how it was routinely misrepresented. This all went well. Half way though the term (and after the climate change section), the students in my class asked where I fell politically. I told them I try not to discuss my own politics. They said, "But we want to know!"

There are two schools of thought on this question: full disclosure and don't ask, don't tell. Having opted for the second, I now found myself facing a room full of students asking for full disclosure instead. Astonishingly, to me at least, they went on to say, "We really don't know!" How could they not know? Anyway, there was really no conflict here. The students asked me a fair question. They knew me well enough to believe me when I said the following: "Me? OK. I'm a raving liberal. Does that mean you have to agree with me? No. Does that mean your grade on issues papers depends on agreeing with me? No. I care that it is well written. I care that you have reasons for your opinions and that you can articulate them."

So, what have I learned? A reasoned approach to the evidence does not necessarily get you branded as a raving liberal.

I'm teaching this class again this term. I was planning on taking the same approach. This is all well and good. However, I find myself wondering if my story needs to change. Why? Well, there is a faculty member on my campus who is a global warming skeptic. He teaches this topic. A lot. His contention that climate change is not caused by humans is appealing to the students. And why wouldn't it be? It means they don't need to think about changing their lifestyles. It is hard to counter this.

I'm hoping the way I tell the story of climate change is up to the challenge.

scientiae-carnival