Climate Change Education Goals, Audiences, and Strategies: A Workshop Summary (2011) / Chapter Skim
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1 Introduction and Goals of Climate Change Education
1 Introduction and Goals of Climate Change Education
Pages 1-18
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. Although information on climate change is now readily available, the nation still seems unprepared or unwilling to respond effectively to climate change, due partly to a general lack of public understanding of climate change issues and opportunities for effective responses (Leiserowitz, 2003; Leiserowitz and Smith, 2010; Leiserowitz, Moser, and Dilling, 2007; Patchen, 2006; Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 2007, 2009)
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Third, the myriad of federal agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and businesses invested in climate change education may duplicate efforts and waste limited resources without a forum for coordination, cooperation, and alignment of overall education strategies. Fourth, like evolution, climate change has become a highly politicized topic in the policy arena and in education, and people's willingness to be educated or to learn depends on their attitude toward the issue itself (Gardner and Stern, 2008; Leiserowitz and Smith, 2010)
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A second workshop will be held to address climate change education in formal education settings, including grades kindergarten through high school and undergraduate studies. Workshop Goals and Organization The overarching goal of the workshop, held in Washington, DC, on October 21 and 22, 2010, was to advance transdisciplinary climate change education efforts undertaken by various climate change educators and stakeholders by developing a common understanding of the range of climate change education goals, the various audiences for climate change education, and strategies that are effective for addressing specific goals with specific audiences.
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Chapter 2 addresses questions related to the audiences of climate change education, and Chapter 3 focuses on the implications of audience segmentation for climate change education strategies and research. The final chapter is a synthesis of the key issues that arose during the workshop.
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5 INTRODUCTION AND GOALS OF CLIMATE CHANGE EDUCATION BOX 1-1 Background Papers Prepared for the Workshop Session 1: Goals of Climate Change Education Into the Breach Andy Revkin Climate Change Education for Sustainable Development William Solecki Climate Change Education Funding Goals: NSF, NOAA, NASA Sherrie Forrest and Jeremy Flattau Session 2: Mapping Current Public Climate Change Goals and Outcomes to Various Audiences Connections Between Climate Literacy and Audience's Climate Change Beliefs and Attitudes Anthony Leiserowitz Sociological Perspective of Climate Change Education Audiences Aaron McCright Social Context for Climate Change Education Susan Clayton America, the Ocean, and Climate Change: Key Findings The Ocean Project Session 3: Implications of Audience Segmentation for Education Strategies and Research Climate Change Education for Diverse Audiences Elaine Andrews Climate Change Education and the Media Heidi Cullen Climate Change Education for Opinion Leaders Matthew Nisbet Climate Change Education for Faith-Based Groups Greg Hitzhusen Climate Change Education for Sportsmen, Nature Enthusiasts, Evangelical Groups, and Other Interest Groups Kevin Coyle Informing an Effective Response to Climate Change: Report in Brief National Research Council GOALS OF CLIMATE CHANGE EDUCATION Climate change education has various goals, which include understanding the basic science of climate and climate change; supporting informed decision making by individuals, organizations, and institutions; behavior change; and stewardship where appropriate -- all of which are
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, which encourages children to collect "solutions." These differences in the underlying goals of climate change education efforts pose barriers to developing a community of practice with a common language. Session moderator Wändi Bruine de Bruin (Carnegie Mellon University)
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Ardoin's recent work includes several initiatives on climate change education, energy efficiency and environmental behavior, and a number of research projects looking at community-based decision making around natural resource use. On the basis of this work, Ardoin sees a tremendous opportunity for climate change education to draw on both behavior change theory and education theory, enabling people not only to learn facts, but also to better understand why climate change matters.
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Hassenzahl gave an example of the positive changes that have occurred over the past century in sanitation, health care, and air quality -- Los Angeles being a good example of the latter. He noted that social scientists have learned a great deal about how such changes come about and suggested that climate change education efforts can benefit from their findings.
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Hassenzahl addressed the question of whether widespread actions to mitigate or adapt to climate change would be more likely to occur with a well-informed public or a "dogmatic" public -- that is, a public that is comfortable following broad, overarching ideas rather than one that makes individual informed decisions on most issues most of the time. He suggested not ruling out the option of people who understand the scientific evidence on climate change becoming more dogmatic on the issue, to parallel the (often highly successful)
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Climate Literacy: The Essential Principles of Climate, developed by 13 federal agencies and many other science and education orga nizations, defines a climate-literate person as someone who "understands the essential principles of Earth's climate system, knows how to assess scientifically credible information about climate, communicates about climate and climate change in a meaningful way, and makes informed and responsible decisions with regard to actions that may affect climate" (U.S. Climate Change Science Program, 2009)
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He argues that these dis cussions tend to view Americans as spectators in a political system in which the real decisions about climate change are made by experts, policy makers, environmentalists, and industry. Proponents of this view assume that increased public understanding of climate change science will lead to increased public concern and wider acceptance of scientific expertise, ultimately leading to a decrease in societal conflict over climate change policy.
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She agreed with the emphasis of the presenters that education about how and why climate change is occurring is not enough, calling for a greater focus on communicating how science works, what scientific uncertainty is, and how individuals can use science to make decisions. The panelists then discussed the goals that climate change education efforts could address beyond increased understanding of facts about cli mate change.
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asked what indication there is that the goals of climate change education are being reached. Niepold responded that one indicator of success is the growing number of states that include climate change in their science education standards, and another is the increasing public understanding of climate change.
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asked if the goals for climate change education include behavior change and, if so, whether that is still considered education rather than communication or advocacy. Niepold responded that, although the question of how education can create behavior change has not been clearly resolved, some climate change efforts include the goal of behavior change and tend to advocate for certain behaviors.
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In addition, groups identified several other high-priority goals of climate change education, including understanding the process of science, empowering informed decision making, and motivating changes in behavior. Within the goal of behavioral changes, several more specific subgoals were identified, including • increase stewardship of the environment; • decrease fossil fuel use; • increase energy efficiency, conservation, and the use of renewable energy resources;
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In all the breakout groups, participants brought up the idea that climate change educators need to have a better understanding of what influences behavior change. In response to questions 2 and 3, group participants discussed the many stakeholders with various assets for climate change education.
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When developing education efforts for these audiences, people said, it seems important to focus on locally relevant impacts of climate change. In addition, having a trusted source of information in the community being addressed may also lead to more productive education efforts.
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