Climate Change Literacy Research Articles

Climate Change Literacy of Elementary School Students in Buleleng District, Bali Province, Indonesia

This study aimed to identify the level of knowledge, attitudes, and behavior of elementary school students in Buleleng District on climate change. Data were collected with a Guttman-scale questionnaire (true-false) for the knowledge domain and Likert scale for attitude and behavior. The area of knowledge consists of four aspects: the fundamental concept aspect (20 statements), the cause (13 comments), the impact (8 comments) as well as mitigation and adaptation (10 statements) while the attitude domain with 12 statements and the behavior of 11 statements. The survey was conducted on 153 students of fourth, fifth, and sixth grade from three different public schools. The results of this study revealed that the majority of participants show moderate levels for understanding basic concepts, impacts, mitigation, and adaptation, but unfortunate for the causes of climate change. Overall, the majority of respondents indicated moderate levels of knowledge of climate change, whereas in attitude but behavior were good. The results concluded that students’ literacy on climate change needs to be improved primarily through teaching strategies on relevant materials to foster awareness of action on climate change mitigation and adaptation from an early age.

Improving Climate Change Literacy and Promoting Outreach in an Undergraduate Atmospheric Sciences Program

AbstractMitigation of human-caused climate change is essential to lessen the extent of future negative impacts, but many people are not aware of the urgency of the situation. For meaningful climate change action to be realized, accurate information must be conveyed by experts to nonexperts. Improved climate change literacy may thus be achieved in two ways. First, we must increase the number of scientists who are knowledgeable about climate change, and second, we must encourage these experts to engage with nonexperts and provide them with adequate resources to do so. Such efforts are currently being implemented in the undergraduate Atmospheric Sciences/Meteorology program (ATM) at Northern Vermont University–Lyndon. To increase knowledge, all ATM students regardless of career pathway are required to take courses that cover the science of human-caused climate change. They are then encouraged to communicate this knowledge to the public. Students are creating informational content for a department-run website and are regularly given opportunities to engage with the public at local schools and events. The results of these curricular and extracurricular changes are promising. Student interest in the topic of climate change has increased and they have demonstrated a heighted sense of responsibility to engage with the public about this challenging topic.

Strengthening their climate change literacy: A case study addressing the weaknesses in young people’s climate change awareness

The project k.i.d.Z.21-Austria is aimed at raising climate change literacy among teenagers. As the participating teenagers had different weaknesses regarding climate change literacy before the project, the project evaluation places emphasis on how the project manages to compensate for these conditions by focusing on the specific weaknesses. Therefore, the preconditions were detected by means of a pre-survey (N = 392). Based thereon, a t-test for paired samples tested the teenagers’ development within the project. The results show that the weaknesses were mostly addressed and that focusing on a target group and weakness specification in evaluating environmental education can be beneficial.

Can MOOCs empower people to critically think about climate change? A learning outcome based comparison of two MOOCs

Climate change can be regarded as one of the key topics of sustainable development where public awareness and education are crucial. In the field of education, Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) have raised remarkable attention throughout the last decade as their initial objective is to provide massive open online education for everyone. This article aims to explore the impact of MOOCs on learning about climate change. This is necessary in order to evaluate whether MOOCs can make a substantial contribution to lifelong learning about sustainable development for a wider audience. We therefore present findings from self-assessment questionnaires of participants from two climate change MOOCs provided by two-distance learning universities in Germany and Portugal. Both MOOCs aimed at imparting to the participants the competencies to better understand the topic of climate change. The objective of the survey was a competency-based evaluation to review which learning outcomes have been achieved. The results indicate that taking part in either of the MOOCs increased the participants’ competencies to critically engage in the climate change debate. MOOCs are able to convey certain learning outcomes to the students and thus can contribute to climate change literacy. For further research, we recommend a more differentiated view on MOOCs and the learning opportunities for participants. Options for potential improvement are to think of better ways of how to integrate MOOCs into climate change education or to consider possibilities to increase the attractiveness of MOOCs for instance by using innovative formats to overcome the barriers between formal and informal learning.

Urban Floods and Climate Change Adaptation: The Potential of Public Space Design When Accommodating Natural Processes

Urban public space is extraordinarily adaptable under a pattern of relatively stable changes. However, when facing unprecedented and potentially extreme climatic changes, public spaces may not have the same adaptation capacity. In this context, planned adaptation gains strength against “business as usual”. While public spaces are among the most vulnerable areas to climatic hazards, they entail relevant characteristics for adaptation efforts. As such, public space design can lead to effective adaptation undertakings, explicitly influencing urban design practices as we know them. Amongst its different intrinsic roles and benefits, such as being a civic common gathering place of social and economic exchanges, public space may have found an enhanced protagonism under the climate change adaptation perspective. In light of the conducted empirical analysis, which gathered existing examples of public spaces with flood adaptation purposes, specific public space potentialities for the application of flood adaptation measures are here identified and characterized. Overall, this research questions the specific social potentiality of public space adaptation in the processes of vulnerability tackling, namely considering the need of alternatives in current flood management practices. Through literature review and case study analysis, it is here argued that: people and communities can be perceived as more than susceptible targets and rather be professed as active agents in the process of managing urban vulnerability; that climate change literacy, through the design of a public space, may endorse an increased common need for action and the pursuit of suitable solutions; and that local know-how and locally-driven design can be considered as a service with added value for adaptation endeavors.

Tourism Pedagogy and Visitor Responsibilities in Destinations of Local-Global Significance: Climate Change and Social-Political Action

This paper examines the issue of climate change pedagogy and social action in tourism, with particular interest in globally-significant destinations under threat from climate change. Little is understood of the role and responsibility of visitors as key stakeholders in climate change-related action or the potential of such sites to foster environmental learning, as well as social and political action on climate change. Drawing on insights from Aldo Leopold and John Dewey, it is argued here that destinations that are valued intrinsically for their ecological and cultural importance are (or ought to be) sites of enjoyment and pedagogy, facilitating experiential learning, care, responsibility and civic action towards their conservation. An exploratory case study of visitors to the Great Barrier Reef offers corroborative insights for such a “reef ethic” as described in this paper, related to visitor experience, learning and action in this World Heritage Area. The results of this paper support the need for a stronger pedagogic role to be adopted by tourism experience providers and site managers to facilitate climate change literacy and responsible action (hence facilitating global environmental citizenship). Their responsibility and that of reef visitors is discussed further.

The influence of teacher variables on climate change science literacy of Geography teachers in the Western Cape, South Africa

ABSTRACTTeachers play an important role in promoting climate change literacy in schools, but not much is known about which teacher characteristics significantly influence Geography teachers’ climate change science literacy. The purpose of this study is to determine the influence of teachers’ characteristics such as gender, age, qualification, specialisation, experience, and teaching grade on Geography teachers’ literacy about climate change science. The study uses a quantitative research approach on questionnaire application. Statistical analysis of data gathered from 194 high school Geography teachers from the Western Cape Province using a 15-item Climate Change Science Literacy Questionnaire (CCSLQ) revealed that gender, age, teaching experience, and teaching grade significantly influenced Geography teachers’ literacy about climate change science, while qualification and specialisation did not.

Resolving spatial and temporal patterns of coral bleaching risk using image analysis: an active learning experience to improve climate change literacy in college students

Recent studies indicate poor understanding of the causes and consequences of climate change among college students. In an effort to improve climate change literacy, we have developed an authentic research experience for upper level undergraduate students focused on resolving spatial and temporal patterns of coral reef bleaching, an ecologically and economically important consequence of climate warming. In the research, students use a public archive of maps generated by the United States National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) that use coloration to depict ocean areas experiencing above-average surface temperatures and where corals are at an increased risk of bleaching. Students are required to quantify the total area of coloration on individual maps using open-source image analysis software called Image J. By quantifying coloration (ie bleaching risk) over a large number of maps in a chronological sequence, students can test hypotheses regarding the relationship between ongoing climate warming and coral bleaching risk. Students are required to summarise their findings in a scientific journal-style report that incorporates graphical representations and statistical tests of their coral bleaching risk data. The research activity is cost-effective, repeatable, requires little specialised knowledge and addresses common programmatic learning outcomes that target scientific communication, quantitative reasoning and sustainability.

Climate change education and literacy at the Faculty of Physical and Mathematical Sciences of the University of Chile

Considering the role that higher education institutions (HEIs) play in terms of catalysing change within societies, over the past years, sustainability initiatives within HEIs have flourished worldwide. Likewise, the scientific evidence of anthropogenic climate change has been on the political and academic agenda for decades, thus, the importance of ameliorating climate change education and literacy both at the society and university training levels. Accordingly, certain questions arise: What are the most effective current climate change educational methodologies? Which road map would be the most appropriate to be suggested to HEIs to promote climate change literacy for future professionals? In order to begin addressing these questions, the Faculty of Mathematical and Physical Sciences of the University of Chile (FCFM) approach to climate change teaching and literacy is herein described. The later contemplates the history of the institutionalisation of sustainability at the FCFM, collection of courses and minors for students which incorporate climate change related-topics, as well as climate change related research centres.

Promoting Climate Change Literacy for Non-majors: Implementation of an atmospheric carbon dioxide modeling activity as an inquiry-based classroom activity

Promoting Climate Change Literacy for Non-majors: Implementation of an atmospheric carbon dioxide modeling activity as an inquiry-based classroom activity

Climate change education and literacy at the Faculty of Physical and Mathematical Sciences of the University of Chile

Considering the role that higher education institutions (HEIs) play in terms of catalysing change within societies, over the past years, sustainability initiatives within HEIs have flourished worldwide. Likewise, the scientific evidence of anthropogenic climate change has been on the political and academic agenda for decades, thus, the importance of ameliorating climate change education and literacy both at the society and university training levels. Accordingly, certain questions arise: What are the most effective current climate change educational methodologies? Which road map would be the most appropriate to be suggested to HEIs to promote climate change literacy for future professionals? In order to begin addressing these questions, the Faculty of Mathematical and Physical Sciences of the University of Chile (FCFM) approach to climate change teaching and literacy is herein described. The later contemplates the history of the institutionalisation of sustainability at the FCFM, collection of courses and minors for students which incorporate climate change related-topics, as well as climate change related research centres.

Improving Undergraduate Climate Change Literacy Through Writing: A Pilot Study

Improving Undergraduate Climate Change Literacy Through Writing: A Pilot Study

HOW DO WE PERCEIVE CLIMATE CHANGE? DIGGING DEEP IN TO THE PUBLIC CLIMATE CHANGE AWARENESS AND BELIEFS IN THE URBAN COMMUNITY OF SOUTHERN PUNJAB, PAKISTAN

The growing concern about climate change has rung its bell across the globe and thus the need of devising appropriate mitigation strategies has become inevitable to address this global issue. Climate change mitigation policies cannot be successfully implemented without considering the perception and acceptability of general public about this global crisis and the suggested tools to mitigate it. This study was designed to assess the climate change literacy and awareness among urban centers of Southern Punjab, Pakistan. The studies revealed that majority of the people living in this part of the country were well aware of the changing climate and had fairly clear opinion about the responsible agents for this change. Social media seemed to be the most influential source of educating people on this issue. However, the study highlighted the room of improvement in Government‟s role to launch better campaigns which might involve people as stake holders in climate change mitigation process.

Losing the Lake: Simulations to Promote Gains in Student Knowledge and Interest about Climate Change

Climate change literacy plays a key role in promoting sound political decisions and promoting sustainable consumption patterns. Based on evidence suggesting that student understanding and interest in climate change is best accomplished through studying local effects, we developed a simulation/game exploring the impact of climate change on the declining water levels in Lake Mead. Because there are few evaluations of educational games using true control groups, this study also presents a randomized field trial evaluating the game. We randomly assigned 119 seventh graders to either a gamebased condition or control condition. Students in the experimental group played Losing the Lake; those in the control group viewed an earth science website. Students also completed pretest, posttest, and delayed posttest measures of their content understanding and interest in issues embodied in the game. We found that playing the game resulted in a significant increase in content knowledge, as measured by a 22-item assessment, especially on items related to household conservation and some basic concepts related to the greenhouse effect. The control group showed no effect. Playing

English

One of the universal responses to tackling global climate change is teaching climate change concepts at all levels of formal education. This response requires, among other things, teachers who are fully literate about climate change science, so that they can explain the concepts underlying the causes, impacts and solutions of climate change as accurately as possible to learners. The main intention of this study was to understand high school Geography teachers’ levels of knowledge about climate change science. A 15-item, criterion-referenced, multiple-choice Climate Change Literacy Questionnaire with a reliability coefficient of 0.74 using the Guttman’s spit-half test was administered to 194 high school Geography teachers in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. Data collected were analysed with the Pearson’s Chi-square test and One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). The results showed that the majority of the participants demonstrated significantly high literacy levels in climate science, with their literacy levels higher in climate processes and causes of climate change than climate change impacts and solutions. Misconceptions were found in all three categories of climate change science as represented in the survey instrument. These findings suggest that teacher educators and policymakers should improve professional development programmes and support interventions in teacher knowledge and understanding of climate change concepts, so as to enhance climate change education in schools.Keywords: climate change education; climate change misconceptions; climate change science literacy; Geography teachers; survey research

Communicating climate change in rural coastal communities

Purpose – This study aims to, using Grande Riviere, Trinidad, as a case study, determine levels of climate change knowledge and awareness in the community. Second, it seeks to provide new knowledge on appropriate techniques for developing climate change literacy. Third, it attempts to highlight action needed for messages to be widely communicated and policy implications for government agencies, non-governmental organisations, communication specialists and educators. Design/methodology/approach – A face-to-face questionnaire was administered to all households, focus group meetings were held and a training workshop was conducted. Findings – A key finding is that despite vulnerability to climate change, climate change literacy is low and is influenced by multiple variables such as household income, level of educational attainment, access to technology, governance structures and political commitment to communicating climate change. A major finding is that access to modern communication modes is limited and therefore verbal communication remains the most powerful means of transmitting messages on climate change. Moreover, opportunities exist for the use of participatory and indigenous communication techniques. Practical implications – A major policy conclusion is that a practical blend of traditional and modern technologies, which emphasises verbal communication and promotes innovative participatory communication technologies, including indigenous ones, would be effective in strengthening adaptive capacity. Originality/value – This paper is useful to policymakers, communication specialists, academia and civil society in understanding that there is no universally applicable technology for climate change communication; the type of technology adopted must be tailored to the economic, social and cultural peculiarities of a community.

Hearts, Minds, and Touchscreens

Of the many challenges awaiting natural resource scientists in the next decade, the ones that give me the longest pause all have to do with how young Americans experience, understand, and appreciate nature. Although climate change literacy has increased markedly in the last decade, younger Americans are simply getting outside less than they ever have before. Heads of families working longer hours, school and intramural sports budget cuts, and the omnipresence of touchscreens—to name but a few issues—have all helped make today’s youth the most sedentary American generation ever. This generation, that physically visits the natural world at historically low rates, will shortly be tasked with studying and managing the very landscapes they so rarely visit for the benefit of themselves and their descendants.

Moving Toward Collective Impact in Climate Change Literacy: The Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN)

ABSTRACT In recent years, various climate change education efforts have been launched, including federally (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Science Foundation, etc.) and privately funded projects. In addition, climate literacy and energy literacy frameworks have been developed and deployed, and both have been reviewed and endorsed by the U.S. Global Change Research Program. This paper describes a community-based effort to promote climate and energy literacy: the CLEAN Network (originally the Climate Literacy Network). We describe results from a member survey about the importance of the network to the members' professional lives and review the development and position of the network within the larger community of climate and energy literacy stakeholders. The CLEAN Network was first formed in 2008 to support climate literacy efforts, largely through voluntary efforts. It serves as a champion and rudimentary and unfunded backbone support organization, enabling first steps toward establishing the elements necessary for successful collective impact in achieving climate literacy. Among the elements that have been described to be essential for a collective impact, the CLEAN Network most effectively provides continuous communication for the broad community of climate literacy stakeholders. The network enables its professionally diverse members to learn of one another's needs and to begin identifying mutually reinforcing activities that will address the common agenda and shared system of measures (two other key elements of collective impact) once they are established. The CLEAN Network serves as a small champion group that continues to seek input from the larger climate literacy stakeholder community on how a backbone support organization might support and extend their efforts. The next steps in a collective impact approach to climate and energy literacy include defining and forming a backbone support organization to facilitate the development of a shared agenda and a shared system of measures, which has the support of all stakeholders, that is sufficiently funded and can help mobilize funding to scale what works in climate and energy literacy. Such an organization would have collective impact that is commensurate to the challenges and opportunities climate change present to the nation.

Optimization of Discussion Forums for Online Students' Climate Literacy

ABSTRACT Our previous research demonstrated that semester-long discussions resulted in significant increases in online students' climate literacy. When students expressed concern over the monotony of the semester-long topic, we extended our research to optimize climate change literacy with more efficient delivery. However, our second investigation revealed that 3-week units resulted in retention of nonscientific opinions. In this study, we implemented online climate change discussions in a 6-week unit. Students in online Earth history classes (N = 64) were randomly placed in discussion groups (N = 6), and assigned mandatory weekly discussions on climate change. For each weekly unit, two to three resources (e.g., graphs, scientific articles) and two multithreaded critical thinking questions were posted. For the final unit, student groups assembled a summary consensus, and completed a Climate Change Survey (N = 57) to assess content. Comparison with earlier results revealed that 2012 students' climate change knowledge and opinions closely paralleled the semester-long discussion population, although there were slight differences. However, final examination essay responses hinted that transferability issues with climate change content knowledge existed outside the discussion realm. We propose 6-week discussions are sufficient for content climate literacy, but more research is needed into the role of group summaries and transferability.

Climate Change Literacy in Postsecondary Horticultural Education in the United States

Horticultural crops are being affected by weather extremes consistent with predictions from climate change models. Impacts include crop losses and extended growing seasons. Negative effects on crop productivity are predicted to vastly overwhelm any positive effects. Students who graduate from our programs will need additional knowledge to succeed compared with those trained in previous decades. To determine the extent to which higher educational institutions across the United States are educating students about these issues, a survey was conducted to gather information on the incorporation of climate change literacy in horticultural curricula. Most programs do not currently offer classes with “climate change” or “global warming” in the formal title or description, but many instructors are including at least some information related to climate change in specific courses they teach. Instructors of courses in fruits, vegetables, or turf, and instructors who do not teach at 1862 land-grant universities, are more likely than other instructors to include content related to climate change in their courses. Instructors who do not have tenure and instructors who teach plant identification courses are more likely than other instructors to have increased the content on climate change in their classes over time.