Agnotology as a Teaching Tool: Learning Climate Science by Studying Misinformation

Despite the existence of a clear scientific consensus about global warming, opinion surveys find confusion among the American public, regarding both scientific issues and the strength of the scientific consensus. Evidence increasingly points to misinformation as a contributing factor. This situation is both a challenge and an opportunity for science educators, including geographers. The direct study of misin- formation—termed agnotology (Proctor 2008 Proctor, R. N. 2008. “Agnotology: A missing term to describe the cultural production of ignorance (and its study)”. In Agnotology: The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance, Edited by: Proctor, R. N. and Schiebinger, L. 1–33. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. [Google Scholar])—can potentially sharpen student critical thinking skills, raise awareness of the processes of science such as peer review, and improve understanding of the basic science. This potential is illustrated with examples from a small, upper-division collegiate weather and climate class.