UNC Researcher to Present at State Capitol
January 9, 2018
University of Northern Colorado postdoctoral researcher Andrew Bentley has been selected to present his research to legislators at the state capitol for Colorado Science Day on Jan. 19.
Bentley
His research on how misinformation spread by dissenters of climate change affects the public’s belief and his research will be on display during a poster session from 8 a.m.-noon Jan. 19 at the capitol building, 200 E. Colfax Ave.
“Quantifying the negative effects of these messages became my dissertation topic,” Bentley said. “I plan on extending this research to better understand what dissenter messages pre-service educators are likely to believe in, and how to rectify belief in this misinformation.”
Bentley started the research while serving as a teacher himself. He’s taught high school, community college, and university Earth Science classes across several states. At UNC, he teaches scientific writing and runs the Science Education Research Group at the Mathematics and Science Teaching Institute (SERG@MAST).
The event is sponsored by Project Bridge, founded by Johns Hopkins University with a chapter at the University of Colorado at Denver, to highlight important research being conducted by early-career scientists at institutions throughout the state.
“It is an honor to be able to present my research to my local representatives,” Bentley said. “I want to demonstrate the importance of cultivating a citizenship with an accurate understanding of anthropogenic climate change. A well-educated public is able to make informed personal and political decisions concerning anthropogenic climate change.”
SERG@MAST
The Science Education Research Group at the Mathematics and Science Teaching Institute invites graduate students or faculty who are interested in science education research, or interested in improving their teaching skills in the science classroom to contact Bentley at andrew.bentley@unco.edu
