Race to Extinction: Ozone Hole vs. Life on Earth

Race to Extinction: Ozone Hole vs. Life on Earth

An analysis of text selection and reading comprehension strategy use in science- Part II

The article discussed below can be found here:

Blakemore, E. (2016). The Ozone Hole Was Super Scary, So What Happened To It? Retrieved from Smithsonian website: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/ozone-hole-was-super-scary-what-happened-it-180957775/

    Continuing on our journey to find appropriate texts and analyze them with effective reading comprehension strategies, Julie and I found an interesting article titled “The Ozone Hole Was Super Scary, So What Happened To It?” by journalist Erin Blakemore (cited above). As a reminder, we chose the topic of climate change because of its relevance to current events. Students who frequently watch the news or use the internet will be exposed to countless texts regarding climate change. Some of those texts will undoubtedly be biased, misleading, inaccurate, or incomplete in some way. Others may be informative and useful for citizens of all occupations. Regardless, we as teachers want our students to be critical and effective readers so that they may analyze those texts and apply what they learn as a scientifically literate members of society. This particular text was actually found by my partner, Julie. She found this article on the Smithsonian website, which has a section for teachers containing articles suitable for grade-school students.  

    When I read this text for the first time, I really enjoyed the narrative created by the author. The article is very informative, but the information is told like a story, starting with the discovery of ozone and transitioning smoothly to the mapping of the ozone layer, then to the realization of its depletion, followed by the mobilization of the world to save our biosphere, and finally a follow-up on the current state of the ozone hole and how this issue compares to modern global warming. The author’s decision to tell this story in chronological order helped me understand how each event impacted the next, and it actually created suspense as I wondered how scientists would stop the ozone hole from increasing in size. I was amazed by the reaction the world had to the ozone layer’s depletion; it’s very different than my perception of how people view climate change today. The discovery of the ozone hole caused so much panic that in 1987 twenty-four nations signed the Montreal Protocol, which limited the use of chlorofluorocarbons, chemicals that destroy ozone. The author expressed concern that because the effects of global warming due to CO2 emissions are more gradual, they are harder to quantify and fear than the ozone hole was. Despite this, some environmental researchers see the response to the ozone hole as a beacon of hope. If so many nations were willing to come together to protect the ozone layer, could a similar response happen with global warming? One of the reasons Julie and I chose this article was the conversation it could start as students respond to this question, among others.

    Julie and I thought this article would be perfect for a middle school or high school level biology class. Crucially, it met all of the criteria necessary for using a science text with our students (Guilford, Bustamante, Mackura, Hirsch, Lyon, & Estrada, 2017). It connects to content standards, as learning about environmental change is an important part of any biology curriculum. The article is also engaging and fosters curiosity, as the author does a great job of captivating the interest of the readers with eye-opening statistics and quotes. Furthermore, it’s short, contains evidence, and is complex yet readable. Lastly, the author uses language and vocabulary that is complex yet accessible for high school students. Because it was so relevant and interesting, we decided to use this text for our literary analysis.

    The purpose of our chosen article was to revisit the ozone hole, a topic that was popular in the media about thirty years ago. The author explained the events leading up to the discovery of the ozone hole, reflected upon the panic it caused and the actions scientists took, and finally compared the ozone hole crisis to the current global warming situation. This is done without figurative language, humor, or irony; the language is serious and scientific. The article is also written from a unique, unbiased perspective. The author, Blakemore, is not a scientist, but is a journalist who summarized the scientific events and principles related to the ozone hole crisis. Julie and I thought her not being a scientist was part of what made the article so accessible, a topic discussed more thoroughly in the next paragraph. Blakemore’s summary was done chronologically using a cause/effect text frame. Blakemore described what happened with the ozone hole, the events leading up to its discovery, what would happen if factors were different, and what scientists are doing going forward. The text also has problem/solution elements, as the author describes the ozone hole problem, the causes and solutions to said problem, and the results of those solutions. Julie and I felt that the cause/effect frame was probably more appropriate because the article uses a heavy time component, describing how our understandings and perceptions of the ozone hole have changed over time. This frame also puts readers in a mindset that promotes discussion. How does our current environmental situation compare to that of 30-40 years ago? What actions could we all take to slow modern global warming? The potential this article has to start discussions is another reason we chose it for our analysis.

    Compared to the previous article we chose, Julie and I felt that this article found a better balance between accessibility and complexity, possibly because the author was not a scientist. Most of the article’s keywords are defined and described in detail such that someone without much background knowledge of the topic would still understand the material. For example, the author defines ozone as a gas made up of three oxygen atoms, and describes the ozone layer and its effects in appropriate detail. Nevertheless, a reader who possesses more background knowledge of a topic will have a better understanding of texts related to that topic (Buehl, 2014). Therefore, the use of frontloading techniques (Buehl, 2014) or engagement strategies (McLaughlin, 2015) would be beneficial for activating students’ prior knowledge, setting the purpose for reading, and capturing student interest. Important vocabulary that may need to be reviewed before reading this text include atmosphere, ozone, stratosphere, ultraviolet light, radiation, chlorofluorocarbons, and greenhouse gases. Terms that students should know, but may need to be discussed in less detail are environment, sterilize, oxygen, element, and concentration. Some words that may not be related to biology, but could be confusing to students include interferometer, contrails, and variances. One of my favorite things about this article is that it highlights key points and provides hyperlinks for more information. For example, when the author cites the findings of a research paper, such as the paper that summarizes the history of ozone, that paper is linked directly in the text. This allows students to do further research and compare multiple texts, if necessary. Finally, the written text is accompanied by a NASA video that describes how the ozone hole varies in size, and how researchers know it is shrinking. I found this video especially informative, as it provides visuals of the ozone-depleting chemicals concentrating around the poles and causing ozone holes. Using multiple texts and forms of media during a literacy lesson could lead to a more nuanced discussion, and we thought younger students would especially benefit from the addition of the video.

    Our challenge for this week was to use a reading comprehension strategy to guide our thinking. These strategies are primarily used during reading, whereas the engagement strategies we used last week were primarily for use before reading (McLaughlin, 2015). Of course, many of the strategies we’ve studied are used to some extent before, during, and after reading a text; however, the ones we used this week are those that most emphasize processes to be completed while reading. The strategy Julie challenged me to use is called text coding. Coding the text involves using sticky notes to indicate points in the text where we are able to make connections. McLaughlin (2015) encourages the use of text-text (T-T), text-self (T-S), and text-world (T-W) connections, as these require students to actively engage the text and activate their prior knowledge. The three types of connections students can make correspond to the three types of prior knowledge students can access. When students reflect on personal experiences that relate to the text, they are making text-self connections. When students remember other texts they’ve read, likely in school, they are making text-text connections. The third type of connections, text-world connections, are made when students draw comparisons between the text they are reading and the overall idea of a topic they have gleamed from many sources, including the media and conversations they hear (Buehl, 2014). Julie and I were drawn to this strategy because, unlike some of the other strategies we’ve studied, it has students activate different types of prior knowledge during reading, not just content-based knowledge. Activating prior knowledge of personal experiences, for example, could engage students more.

    I found coding the text to be a highly engaging reading comprehension strategy. It forced me to listen to my inner dialogue while reading, instead of passively reading through the material. For example, in the second paragraph of the article, I made a text-text connection between the author’s description of oxygen and the periodic table I used countless times in chemistry courses. I visualized the table when I read those sentences, and visualized the molecular structure of ozone from my organic chemistry textbook when ozone was described as a molecule made of three oxygen atoms. When the author noted that ozone provides protection from the sun’s UV rays, I thought about all the times I had applied sunscreen to prevent being sunburnt, and imagined how different being outdoors would be without the ozone layer, a text-self connection. Finally, I made a text-world connection when the author described the ozone hole as the second of three major atmosphere-related concerns in our history, following acid rain and preceding greenhouse gas-based global warming. I thought about how the media and my peers have reacted to global warming, and wondered how I would have reacted if I was alive during the ozone hole crisis.

   

    I think text coding is an excellent strategy to use for this text. Because the topic of the text is related to both course content and students’ everyday lives, many connections can be made between the text and personal experiences and previously learned material. If students are then given the opportunity to reflect on how the reading changed their perception of the material, they will certainly learn more, as engaging prior knowledge and actively reflecting on how new knowledge relates to old knowledge are the two most important tenets of constructivism (Tracey & Morrow, 2012). I also have come to appreciate the flexibility coding the text provides. For one, coding the text could easily be modified such that students list relevant personal experiences and prior knowledge before reading, make connections during reading, and reflect on those connections during a discussion after reading the text. This would allow the comprehension strategy to be used before, during, and after the actual reading. Furthermore, Buehl (2014) describes an alternate form of coding the text, in which students use “R” to denote things the texts reminds them of, “V” to signify things they visualized, “E” to signify emotions, “Q” to mark questions they have, “I” to signify information they’ve learned, “?” to mark sections they don’t understand, and “!” to label interesting information. This is another interesting way to have students make connections and use metacognition while reading. Advantages of both forms of text coding are: students create a personal understanding of the author’s message, students appreciate that comprehension comes from an inner dialogue between the author’s words and the reader’s thinking, and students must summarize key points in their own words, helping them remember and understand better (Buehl, 2014). For these, reasons, I think coding the text is a strategy that I’ll utilize in my future classrooms.

    Our second search of the literature led Julie and I to an article that was more accessible than the first. The vocabulary in this article was still quite complex, but we both considered it more manageable for middle and high school students than the one we analyzed last week, leading us to conclude that frontloading would be less critical. I was challenged to use text coding as a guiding comprehension strategy while reading, and was pleased with the results. This strategy activates prior knowledge by making connections not only to material previously learned in class, but personal experiences and worldly-perceptions as well. I found myself examining the interplay between the author’s message and my own thinking, leading to a more personal understanding of the text. Coding the text was especially useful for this text in particular because of this text’s relevance to our everyday lives and course material. Students may have more difficulty using this strategy with a cell biology text, for example, because text-self and text-world connections may be less obvious to the students. I certainly view this strategy as an effective one, and intend to add it to my repertoire of skills that will accompany me into the classroom.

References

Buehl, D. (2014). Classroom Strategies for Interactive Learning (4th ed.). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Guilford, J., Bustamante, A., Mackura, K., Hirsch, S., Lyon, E., & Estrada, K. (2017). Text Savvy. The Science Teacher, 84 (1), 49-56. Retrieved from https://blackboard.stevenson.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-1349981-dt-content-rid-7100950_1/courses/17S8W2_ED_620_OL1/ED%20620_Science%20Journal.pdf

McLaughlin, M. (2015). Content Area Reading: Teaching and Learning for College and Career Readiness. Boston, MA: Pearson.

Tracey, D.E., & Morrow, L. M. (2012). Lenses on Reading: An Introduction to Theories and Models. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.