“Chemistry, climate and the skills in between”: mapping cognitive skills in an innovative program designed to empower future citizens to address global challenges

1 Critical thinking skills

The abundance of information around us, especially on the Internet, requires a more in-depth evaluation. Therefore, it is our duty, as chemistry educators, to provide students with the requisite skills needed to effectively evaluate and analyze the wide range of information available to them while they implement their chemistry knowledge. This assessment requires a variety of interrelated skills and abilities. Moreover, this will allow students to make responsible decisions based on evidence instead of relying only on intuition (Rap et al., 2022; Walsh & McGowan, 2017).

This is in line with the OECD’s (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) call to develop cognitive and meta-cognitive skills that students should learn and apply in order to be able to develop and realize their inherent potential to achieve a successful future. One of these skills is critical thinking (OECD, 2018), which can be defined as thoughtful reflective thinking that involves evaluating beliefs and determining actions (Ennis, 1987). It involves various abilities, such as recognizing a problem, evaluating assumptions, using logical reasoning, and making judgments (Kennedy et al., 1991). Teachers should cultivate a passion for discussing and questioning ideas in order to foster students’ critical thinking. However, this can only be achieved if both the teacher and students are willing to defend and justify their beliefs and ideas (Passmore, 1972).

In a whitepaper published by the Israeli Ministry of Education titled “The Graduate’s Image” (Ministry of Education, 2020), the importance of including various skills in the school curriculum is emphasized, in particular, the skill of critical thinking, one of the essential skills in the 21st century. By imparting critical thinking skills, we teach students to delay their judgment until sufficient evidence is obtained. This skill includes independent thinking, suspension of biased judgments, the ability to formulate a claim and justify it, writing well-founded arguments, and formulating a worldview (Ministry of Education, 2020).

From the analysis of the actions taken in the framework of critical thinking, it can be surmised that the students are expected to reach certain decisions and justify them. To achieve this goal, students should have the requisite argumentation skills so that they can effectively and critically present the decisions they reached. Therefore, we chose to also explicitly teach argumentation skills while utilizing the learning materials.

2 Argumentation in science education

One key objective of science education is to enable students to construct and critique arguments within a scientific context. Argumentation is an important aspect of scientific progress; it enhances students’ conceptual understanding, assists them in making informed decisions, and enables them to work like a scientist (Faize et al., 2018). In order to cultivate argumentation skills, it is important to impart the meaning of scientific content and the essence of developing scientific concepts to students (Erduran et al. 2004; Hofstein & Kind, 2012; Hofstein et al. 2008). According to Jiménez-Aleixandre (2007), an optimal learning environment for constructing arguments should be student-centered, incorporate authentic problem-solving approaches, and allow for reflective communication and assessment beyond written tests. Combining these elements encourages the implementation of an argumentative, interactive learning environment.

Formulating an argument is a cognitive process that aids in developing an understanding of scientific concepts and the reasoning skills (Li et al., 2022; Osborne, 2010). Learning how to construct a compelling argument helps students grasp scientific concepts and develop higher-order thinking skills; it also has significant social value. By engaging in activities that encourage the development of argumentative skills, students acquire the ability to hold meaningful conversations with their peers. This skill is useful in all areas of life and is not only limited to science learning (Jiménez-Aleixandre et al., 2000).

However, students often have difficulty formulating high-level arguments on their own, especially when selecting and interpreting findings as evidence to support their claims (Sandoval & Millwood, 2005). Therefore, initiating activities that encourage and support argumentation skills is necessary, especially with controversial activities having diverse solutions (Andriessen & Schwarz, 2009; Duschl & Osborne, 2002). Researchers have proposed using socio-scientific dilemmas to develop students’ ability to formulate and counter arguments, since they tend to be vague and open-ended (Dawson & Venville, 2010; Jafari & Meisert, 2021; Karpudewan & Roth, 2018; Zohar & Nemet, 2002).

Students can engage in discussions and decision-making within the school’s safe environment as well as develop their argumentation skills (Grace, 2009; von Aufschnaiter et al., 2008). Building students’ argumentation skills has significant social importance, in addition to their learning of scientific concepts and high-order learning skills. These skills are useful for overcoming life’s challenges and are not solely used in the context of science learning (Asterhan & Schwarz, 2016; Bybee, 2008).

Zeidler (2014) argued that socio scientific issues (SSIs) education should ideally, whenever possible, utilize relevant, controversial, and unstructured personal problems that require scientific, evidence-based thinking, such as using argumentation, to make better decisions about difficult issues. SSIs were found to be stimulating and engaging for students and increased their motivation and interest in science topics by introducing ‘real life’ science (Bulte et al., 2006). Nevertheless, it is important to remember that for issues of this type, the decision-making is usually driven by personal factors such as emotions, worldviews, and personal experience rather than aspects related to science (Sadler & Zeidler, 2009). Indeed, an argument in scientific education is quite different from the gut feeling (i.e., intuition) that is used in everyday discourse. It is not an “exchange of opinions and feelings” between two opponents whose goal is to defeat each other (Duschl et al., 2007). Argumentation can be described as a type of discourse through which knowledge claims are constructed and evaluated individually and collaboratively in light of empirical or theoretical evidence (Erduran & Jimenez-Aleixandre, 2012).

In order to phrase a high-level argument on contemporary issues, it is necessary to analyze information obtained from different sources such as videos, articles, tables, graphs, and processed data. The latter three sources of information belong to the category of data literacy, and we opted to focus on them in the learning materials.

3 Mathematical literacy

Data-based challenges require the use of mathematical literacy to address them. Mathematical literacy is an individual’s capacity to reason mathematically and to formulate, employ, and interpret mathematics to solve problems in a variety of real-world contexts. It includes concepts, procedures, facts, and tools to describe, explain, and predict phenomena. It helps individuals become acquainted with the role that mathematics plays in the world and to make well-founded judgments and decisions needed by constructive, engaged and reflective 21st Century citizens (OECD, PISA 2022 Mathematics Framework). This can be considered as an individual’s capacity to formulate, employ, and interpret mathematics in a variety of contexts (Istiandaru et al., 2018). Such contexts include personal, societal, and scientific contexts (OECD, 2022; Tabach & Fridlander, 2008).

4 Climate change as a context to acquire skills

This study focuses on climate change (also known as global warming). We live in a new era in which scientists point to unnatural changes in measured temperatures over the land and oceans, to the increasing acidity level of the oceans, as well as abnormal trends in seasonal changes and weather phenomena, such as storms, hurricanes, droughts, and floods. These changes are directly caused by global warming, resulting from increasing global emissions of greenhouse gases by humans, primarily due to the use of fossil fuels. The Paris Agreement recommended limiting warming to a maximum of 2 degrees Celsius (with a preference for 1.5 degrees Celsius) relative to the pre-industrial revolution period, until the end of the 21st century, to minimize the expected damages from global warming (Jayaraman, 2015).

Climate change is becoming increasingly relevant, it receives constant coverage in media channels, and new information emerges almost daily. Since the Paris Agreement in 2015, countries have been striving to make decisions based on the growing body of scientific research in various fields, including chemistry, physics, and earth sciences. The number of scientific studies on climate change has dramatically increased over the past two decades (Callaghan et al., 2020), and the work of climate scientists has influenced decision-makers in politics. Therefore, to better understand the strategies adopted by international agreements such as the Paris Agreement and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, it is necessary to understand the scientific principles and critically analyze a wealth of data from numerous studies (Minx et al., 2017).

Additionally, understanding climate change, is based on scientific research that is not always known to the general public. Therefore baseless opinions, unfounded information, and even fake news are present in our lives. For this reason developing critical thinking skills is both relevant and important. The relevance is very high for all residents of the Earth, regardless of geography, affiliation with one government or another, or socio-economic status. Moreover, forming a personal, independent, and informed opinion regarding this crisis is vital for everyone.

Education plays an important role in the context of addressing climate change. The role of education is to raise students’ awareness of the problem, encourage them to take appropriate action within their communities, and promote a new generation of scientists and policy makers to develop innovative solutions to the crisis (Unites Nations, n.d.).

As a result of the growing need and important role of education, programs have been developed to better understand this issue. For example, Dawson and Carson (2017) described the use of various climate change scenarios to teach argumentation skills to students. In another program, Romero Ariza et al. (2021) emphasized the development of critical thinking by analyzing graphs and mathematical data related to climate change.

In a program that was recently developed, “Speak to Me in Numbers”, use was made of imparting argumentation and critical thinking skills to develop students’ agency to promote a positive change on sustainability issues, in their close surroundings including dealing with climate change. In this program, students were exposed to a number of climate change issues and then were required to search for relevant data presented in graphs or data tables that relate to a particular problem or challenge. Based on the data, students were asked to draw conclusions and make data-based arguments by performing a mathematical analysis of the data (Rap et al., 2022).

5 The study

The activities we developed in the current program “Chemistry, Climate & the Numbers in Between” are planned to be part of chemistry lessons. Therefore, we focused on the chemistry of climate change, the connection between human actions and global warming, and finding technological solutions to the crisis, with an emphasis on the chemical principles of the solutions.

The program consists of three units that relate to climate change (see Table 1). Each unit opens with a question or dilemma for the students to address based on their previous knowledge. No single or “correct” solution exists for any of the dilemmas. Rather, our goal in developing these units was to expose students to various lines of thought and encourage them to suspend their judgment, think critically, and reach a data-based decision based on the chemistry relevant to the issue. One unit deals with natural gas and whether it is correct to use it (in the Israeli local energy situation) as an energy source until the transition to renewable energies is completed. In order to address this question, the students learn about the advantages and disadvantages of natural gas as well as its effects on the environment. A second unit deals with solar panels, which brings up the question of whether solar panels are the ideal solution to climate change. The students are introduced to the chemistry of solar panels as well as the carbon footprints over their life cycles. Then they are asked to base their conclusion on what they have learned. In the last unit, which examines electric cars as a means to reduce carbon emissions and deal with climate change, the students learn about the internal combustion engine and the working mechanism of the battery in electric cars. Based on this information and additional data revealed during the course of the unit, they are requested to decide whether the electric car is actually “greener”.

Despite the multitude of documents regarding the high-school graduate’s image, there remains a lack of educational programs that can transform the idea of teaching skills into meaningful changes (Zohar & Bushrian, 2020). This program tries to bridge this gap. In each of the units, we made an effort to combine different cognitive skills according to the “graduate’s image” document. In the current research, our aim was to map the cognitive skills within the program modules. We evaluated the potential of this program to improve these skills and to prepare students to be engaged and critical citizens in the future.

6 Methodology

The three modules that were developed as part of the project underwent mapping of cognitive skills according to the “The Graduate’s Image” document, which the Israeli Ministry of Education published (2020) based on the OECD compass (2019). Six main skills are included: linguistic literacy, scientific and mathematical literacy, critical thinking, creative thinking, information literacy, and digital literacy. Each of these main skills includes several sub-skills, described in Table 2.

The first two authors mapped each of the questions in the different units as well as the required competencies in each question. The third author reviewed the mappings, and in cases of inconsistency (∼10 %), decided which competencies were required to resolve the problem. Ultimately, the authors arrived at a conclusion and achieved consistent coding through discussion. A total of 205 questions underwent this mapping process. Each question may include more than one skill. Examples of two exercises that underwent the mapping process are presented in the results section. After the initial mapping stage was completed, all skills belonging to the relevant main skill categories were consolidated, and their relative frequencies were analyzed.

7 Results

In this section, we will first present two examples of analyzing exercises from the units on natural gas and electric vehicles. Like in all the units in the program, the students faced a dilemma and were requested to write their opinion based on previous information they have and then revisit the same dilemma during the unit.

In the unit about natural gas, the dilemma is:

In Israel, most facilities have switched to producing electricity by burning natural gas. This is called the “Gas Bridge” – a bridge the country will use until it is ready for renewable energy. However, environmental organizations criticize the use of natural gas. What do you think? Explain.

Throughout the unit, the students are exposed to the advantages (e.g., the relatively reduced CO₂ emission) and disadvantages (e.g., methane, which is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO₂, leaks) of natural gas, while gaining a deep understanding of the relevant chemistry. At the end, the students must argue again a well-founded and nuanced claim based on the knowledge acquired during the program.

We will now present a sample exercise that describes the advantages of natural gas. Table 3 presents the sections, the distribution of the main skills, and the sub-skills that belong to each section according to the mapping process (Table 2).

Table 3:

The skills mapped in the unit “burning natural gas”.

The section	Main Skills	Sub-Skills (Table 2)
1. Calculate the energy and amount of carbon dioxide emitted by burning 1 kilogram of each fuel. Please show your calculations.	1) Lingual literacy 2) Scientific and mathematical literacy	1,7,8
2. From your calculations, give two advantages of burning methane instead of isooctane or octane 95	1) Lingual literacy 2) Scientific and mathematical literacy 3) Critical thinking 4) Creative thinking	1,2,3,7,10, 12,16,18,21
This figure shows the carbon intensity of electricity that is generated by different methods. All values in g CO 2 eq/kWh Source: https://greengroundswell.com/epa-clean-power-plan-existing-power-plant-co2-emissions/2014/10/16/ 3. Answer these questions:
a. What does each bar represent?	1) Lingual literacy 2) Scientific and mathematical literacy	1,7
b. What are the units of each axis (if they exist)?	1) Lingual literacy 2) Scientific and mathematical literacy	1,7,8
c. Of all the energy sources presented, which ones emit the highest amount of CO 2 eq per energy unit? What do these sources have in common?	1) Lingual literacy 2) Scientific and mathematical literacy	1,7
d. Of all the energy sources you mentioned in part c, which one emits the highest amount of CO 2 eq per energy unit?	1) Lingual literacy 2) Scientific and mathematical literacy	1,7,8
e. Provide a scientific explanation for the phenomenon shown in this chart.	1) Scientific and mathematical literacy 2) Creative thinking	7,8,10,12,21
4. Eran wants to convince his parents to install solar panels on their household’s roof in order to convert their electricity to a solar energy source. Which data should Eran show his parents to convince them to do so? Which information should Eran add to be convincing? Phrase Eran’s arguments for his parents.	1) Lingual literacy 2) Scientific and mathematical literacy 3) Critical thinking	1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8, 10,12,13,14,15, 16
5. In recent years, the electric company decided to reduce the use of coal-burning power stations and convert to natural gas instead. What do you think of this action? Explain.	1) Scientific and mathematical literacy 2) Creative thinking	7,8,12,18,20
6. Two energy stations produce the same amount of energy per day. One does so by burning methane (CH 4(g) ) and the other by burning Isooctane C 8 H 18(l). Which station will emit the highest amount of carbon dioxide? Show your calculations.	1) Lingual literacy 2) Scientific and mathematical literacy 3) Critical thinking	1,2,3,7,8,12,16

An example of an exercise from the natural gas unit (see also in Supplementary Materials):

In this activity, we will examine additional comparisons between different types of fuels. Please use the enthalpy values of the combustion reactions of the different fuels:

As can be seen from the analysis, most of the sections require a linguistic component as well as scientific and mathematical literacy. In addition, critical thinking and creative thinking skills, which accompany the current unit, were also present.

From the analysis, students appear to engage in skills they may not have encountered in a regular chemistry lesson. For example, in Section 4, students are expected to utilize argumentation skills to convince their parents to install solar cells on the roof of their house. This requires a variety of skills, the most prominent of which are persuasion and argument building. These skills are transferrable and can be utilized in various real-life contexts. To answer this kind of question, students must substantiate their arguments with diverse sources of information encountered during the unit, evaluate whether the sources are reliable, integrate them, and even look for data they might be missing to present a well-founded and convincing argument. They must formulate their claims clearly and organize them accordingly. In addition, they must understand the data they rely on and utilize their data literacy and the science embedded in their arguments (e.g., the reduction of CO₂ emissions).

Next, we will present another example of an exercise from the unit about the electric vehicle (Table 4). The dilemma in this unit is:

Some argue that an electric vehicle is “greener” than a gasoline-powered vehicle and is thus a solution to the problem of global warming. Others argue to the contrary. What do you think? Explain.

In the question presented here, the students are exposed to one of the combustion products of an internal combustion engine (CO₂), and through an experiment, they conclude how it might affect the environment.

An example of an exercise from the electric vehicle unit (see also in Supplementary Materials):

In this experiment, we will demonstrate a property of carbon dioxide, a product of an internal combustion engine.

The system includes:

Two sealed bottles. One contains air and the other carbon dioxide.

Each bottle contains a temperature sensor that is connected to a computer.

Two light bulbs, which are used as a heat source.

The experiment:

The bottles are illuminated by the bulbs for about 10 minutes, and the temperature is

displayed in a suitable graph on the computer.

1. Here are the results (Figure 1):

Figure 1:

The result of the experiment in the electric vehicle unit.

Similar to the previous example, in this exercise, four main skills were found and a variety of sub-skills are required in order to answer the questions. In this example, the difficulty of the questions increased gradually. At the beginning, a limited number of sub-skills are required in order to answer the first sections. Later, when the students understand the graph, they must think about the scientific phenomenon that causes the change they observed. For example, in the last section of this question, the students should think creatively and suggest additional connections and hypotheses regarding the source of the experimental results. They should analyze the presented data and, based on this information and their previous knowledge, create an argument that will explain the observed scientific phenomenon. Finally, they are also requested to formulate a written hypothesis.

The three modules we developed comprised 205 questions, and a total of 1079 sub-skills were classified. Figure 2 illustrates the distribution of all the units’ main skills.

Figure 2:

Distribution of cognitive skills in “Chemistry, Climate & the Numbers in Between” program.

The diagram, presented in Figure 2, shows that most of the cognitive skills, as expected in a chemistry class, involve linguistic, mathematical, and scientific literacy. However, critical thinking (which includes argumentation skills) and creative thinking skills are also important components of the units. These units were developed to strengthen and deepen both of these skills; we can see that students who study the units must use these skills in addition to acquiring scientific knowledge. It can be seen that information literacy and digital literacy skills are also required. Although their representation is relatively limited, they are a significant part of the units. Students are required to search for relevant information on the web and choose it using these literacies to answer the main question.

8 Discussion

Different programs have been developed with the goal of integrating critical thinking and integrative learning skills while learning chemistry (Park, 2019). Other programs have dealt with education for sustainable development challenges in recent years. However, beyond the development of the content, it was found that there is a need to develop the possibility for students to use their argumentation skills and critical thinking (Munkebye et al., 2020). Many studies have shown the usefulness of adding a context from everyday life that is familiar to students in order to improve their critical thinking skills (Awofala & Lawal, 2022). Furthermore, it was found that socio-scientific issues in general and climate change, in particular, have the potential to support argumentation and provide meaningful contexts for graph interpretation and data analysis (Dawson & Carson, 2017; Romero Ariza et al., 2021).

In this vein, the program we have developed aims to develop these skills and produce graduates with the ability to adopt a critical and well-founded perspective toward the world. Today in Israel, despite policies that encourage promoting the skills of the graduate’s image (2020), there remains a lack of educational programs that transform these policy documents into applicable and operative initiatives that deal with relevant and authentic contexts of global challenges and integrate them into the curriculum. The results of the current study show that the newly developed program addresses this gap.

By mapping the skills required in the program, it has been found that the current program, with its unique structure, can be utilized to integrate numerous skills within a chemistry lesson. In contrast, a “traditional” chemistry lesson on energy may not include all these skills, as delineated in Tables 3 and 4. However, it is important to note that learning in this way requires much more time than a regular lesson and requires significant investment from the teacher as well as programs for their professional development (Parsi & Ashraf, 2020).

It has been found in the past that in order to promote skills such as building an argument, especially rich and scientifically based, it is important to iterate students’ explanations during teaching. In addition, it is crucial to allow time for the explicit learning of the skills themselves (Novak & Treagust, 2022; Ping et al., 2020).

Nonetheless, the program presents opportunities to demonstrate that chemistry, considered a central science (Mahaffy et al., 2019), truly merits such a designation because of its ability to elucidate various phenomena that have the potential to impact our lives both at present and in the future. Chemistry is a creative field that can utilize green approaches and sustainable resources to transform materials into novel products that impact various aspects of modern life (Shuai et al., 2014). Therefore, showing students actual problems in the world through “chemical lenses” is of great importance, thereby providing students with a comprehensive understanding as well as developing skills and considerations that match this understanding.

This article demonstrates the inherent potential of such a program; however, there is still a need to carefully examine and evaluate how constructing the program’s skills affects students and how the program helps them in understanding sustainable development challenges, their management, and how chemistry is reflected in their solutions.