Climate Change and the North Carolina Coast

Abstract

One of the greatest challenges currently facing geographic education is developing instructional materials to inform students and communities of the geographical aspects of climate change. One approach is to teach the material as a 'stand alone' subject, or as a subtopic of physical geography or climate science. Such an approach is very effective in providing learners with an understanding of the scientific principles upon which climate change theory is based. However, too often, such efforts fall short of providing a local context for the impacts of global climate change (Bizikova et al., 2007; IPCC 2007; Shaw et al., 2009).