Raising students’ perception of the relevance of science teaching and promoting communication and evaluation capabilities using authentic and controversial socio-scientific issues in the Framework of climate change

This paper describes the development of different lesson plans dealing withauthentic and controversial socio-scientific issues in the framework ofclimate change. These lesson plans orient themselves along the sociocritical,problem-oriented approach to science teaching. They deal with theuse of bioethanol as an alternative fuel and with the phenomenon of climatechange itself. The development of these lesson plans for chemistry classesusing Participatory Action Research will also be discussed. Parallelapproaches to Physics, Biology and Politics education taken in the project"Climate Change Before the Court" will also be outlined briefly.Experiences from applying these lesson plans in German chemistry teachingare also discussed.