Informal Science Education on the NASA Climate Change Website: Addressing the Challenge of Educating Diverse Audiences.

Abstract

Informal science educators who wish to educate the public about climate change seek to inform broad audiences, regardless of their level of education or prior familiarity with scientific concepts and facts. This presents a challenge for educators online: audiences may vary widely in their awareness of facts relating to climate change. They may have different questions, differing levels of ability to search for and understand scientific information, and differing levels of interest in learning. We examined how visitors’ education levels affect their uses of and responses to an online source that seeks to educate the public on climate change: NASA’s website climate.nasa.gov. We found similarities and differences between people with differing levels of education on their: • Questions about climate change; • Success in finding information at the NASA climate change website that answers their questions; • Evaluations of the website, in terms of its ease of use, ability to engage their interest, and accessibility; • Assessments of NASA’s climate research and its scientists; and • Changes in knowledge and attitudes in response to visiting the website.