Associate Professor, Science Education, North Carolina State University
K.C.’s research serves as a counter-narrative to the science education literature’s concentration on what students do not know about climate change; by contrast, she focuses on empowering and hopeful messages around what students can do to address his pressing and growing issue. Drawing on research from the fields of communication and environmental psychology, K.C. has investigated the language used to teach about climate change in formal educational settings, analyzing the language used in student textbooks and by teachers as they lecture about climate change. She has, for example, experimentally tested the effects of language choices on students’ understanding, attitudes, and action. K.C.’s research mission is to explore and advance educational experiences that empower students of science to improve their lives and their communities. K.C. is currently an associate professor in the Leadership in Public Science Interdisciplinary Cluster at NC State University.
Previously, she worked as a postdoctoral fellow with the Stanford Center for Language, Assessment, and Equity (SCALE). She holds a PhD in science education from Stanford University and an M.A. from the University of Texas in Austin. After completing a B.S. in ecology from Iowa State University, she taught secondary school science in Austin, Texas for 12 years; she also has 2 years of informal environmental education experience in Africa with the Peace Corps and in Nevada with the National Park Service.