Research indicates teachers place a high priority on climate change as a topic their students should know, but report their own knowledge as inadequate for teaching it. Students (and some teachers) seem unable to distinguish among related environmental issues, and treat general "environmentally friendly" behavior as affecting all issues. The curricular fit of global climate change is best in Earth systems oriented classrooms but opportunities exist across the curriculum; instructional materials are available, though these may not address misconceptions. Some interest groups oppose human-mediated climate change as a curriculum topic, for the same reasons they oppose public action on the problem.
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Lee, Jae-Young and Rosanne W. Fortner. 2000. Classification of environmental issues by perceived certainty and tangibility. International Journal of Environmental Education and Information, 19(1): 11-20.

Abstract. Environmental educators and researchers have treated uncertainty and intangibility of global warming as unprecedented. We assumed, however, that every environmental issue deserves a certain level of certainty and tangibility. This survey study was conducted to categorize a variety of environmental issues into four groups by the combination of two concepts, perceived certainty and tangibility, and further to test the researchers’ assumption that global warming would not rank among other issues on these attributes. A questionnaire was administered to 90 college students from the School of Natural Resources. Most of nine environmental issues studied were successfully categorized into one of four groups, with two interesting exceptions. As assumed, global warming fell into the uncertain-intangible group. For all nine issues, certainty scores were higher than tangibility and there were significant relationships between perceived certainty and tangibility. No significant differences were found between genders or between undergraduate and graduate students. Implications of these findings for environmental educators and communicators are discussed.
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Fortner, Rosanne W., Corney, J.R., Lee, J-Y., and Romanello, S. DEVELOPING A MEASURE OF PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING OF CLIMATE CHANGE AND WILLINGNESS TO ACT WHEN SCIENCE IS UNCERTAIN. Proceedings of Climate Change Comunication Conference. June 2000, Kitcher-Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

Before the 1997 Kyoto Conference, two parallel studies measured public understanding of climate change and willingness to act when the science presented in media portrays uncertainty.  Study I examined the certainty with which media reported information.  Study II assessed public knowledge about climate change, certainty about that information, trust in media, and willingness to act against global warming.  Media reports were scarce; about half of the references to global warming were hedged. Newspapers hedged more than other print media and television. The audience (n=139) was fairly knowledgeable and certain about global warming. Knowledge was moderately related to willingness to act.
 
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Corney, Jeffrey R. & Rosanne W. Fortner, DOES TEACHER EDUCATION TRANSLATE INTO STUDENT GAINS? Evaluation of an Earth Systems Education Program Conducted in Great Lakes Area Middle Schools

Abstract. A program of intensive teacher education, using an Earth Systems approach and Great Lakes subject matter, was evaluated among students of the teachers involved. Middle schoolers generally improved in process skills and interdisciplinary knowledge of the environment and its issues.
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Meyer, Richard and R.W. Fortner. 2000. Freshwater topics in the classroom: Discrepancies among priorities, teachers’ knowledge and current teaching. The Journal of Environmental Education.

Abstract. Teachers of grades 5 and 9 responded to a mailed survey about Great Lakes and freshwater topics, expressing their priority for having their students learn about each topic, their personal knowledge of topics, and the extent to which they teach the topics.  Teacher priorities were compared with those of natural resource professionals, who concurred with teacher rankings but rated most topics as higher priority than did the teachers.  Grades 5 and 9 teachers placed highest priority on water  conservation, water cycle, water properties and contaminated food web. Knowledge, Priority and Inclusion in teaching were positively and significantly (p<.01) related to each other, but discrepancies existed between teacher knowledge and priority for all topics.  Teachers prefer one day or shorter workshops for inservice, and activities and prepared teaching units as resources for teaching water topics. Results are discussed in light of the Pedagogical Content Knowledge model, considering what education providers can and cannot do to increase inclusion of desired environmental topics in classrooms.