Fostering public climate change discussions from a social interaction perspective

Public discussions on climate change, as a form of social interaction, are widely recognized as effective tools for promoting collective action. However, there is limited research on examining the factors that influence climate change discussions from a social interaction perspective. In the present study, we conducted a large sample (N = 1,169) survey to investigate personal (such as self-efficacy and personal response efficacy) and others' (such as perceived others' response efficacy and social norms) factors influencing climate change discussions from a social interaction perspective. The results showed that (i) for people with high climate change perceptions, personal response efficacy, self-efficacy, and social norms have positive effects on climate change discussions, but the effect of perceived others' response efficacy on climate change discussion is not significant; (ii) for people with low climate change perceptions, self-efficacy and social norms have positive effects on climate change discussions, but the effects of personal response efficacy and perceived others' response efficacy on climate change discussion are not significant; (iii) irrespective of individuals' high or low perceptions of climate change, social norm remains the most important predictor of climate change discussions. These findings make valuable contributions to the theoretical literature and intervention efforts regarding climate change discussions from a social interaction perspective.

Coverage of climate change in introductory biology textbooks, 1970-2019

Climate change is a potent threat to human society, biodiversity, and ecosystem stability. Yet a 2021 Gallup poll found that only 43% of Americans see climate change as a serious threat over their lifetimes. In this study, we analyze college biology textbook coverage of climate change from 1970 to 2019. We focus on four aspects for content analysis: 1) the amount of coverage, determined by counting the number of sentences within the climate change passage, 2) the start location of the passage in the book, 3) the categorization of sentences as addressing a description of the greenhouse effect, impacts of global warming, or actions to ameliorate climate change, and 4) the presentation of data in figures. We analyzed 57 textbooks. Our findings show that coverage of climate change has continually increased, although the greatest increase occurred during the 1990s despite the growing threats of climate change. The position of the climate change passage moved further back in the book, from the last 15% to the last 2.5% of pages. Over time, coverage shifted from a description of the greenhouse effect to focus mostly on effects of climate change; the most addressed impact was shifting ecosystems. Sentences dedicated to actionable solutions to climate change peaked in the 1990s at over 15% of the passage, then decreased in recent decades to 3%. Data figures present only global temperatures and CO2 levels prior to the year 2000, then include photographic evidence and changes to species distributions after 2000. We hope this study will alert curriculum designers and instructors to consider implicit messages communicated in climate change lessons.

Rule-Governed Behavior and Climate Change: Why Climate Warnings Fail to Motivate Sufficient Action

Climate scientists warn of dire consequences for ecological systems and human well-being if significant steps to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions are not taken immediately. Despite these warnings, greenhouse gas concentrations continue to rise, indicating that current responses are inadequate. Climate warnings and reactions to them may be analyzed in terms of rules and rule-governed behavior. The literature on rule-governed behavior in behavior analysis has identified a variety of factors that can reduce rule following, including insufficient rule exposure, insufficient learning history and rule complexity, incomplete rules, instructed behavior not sufficiently learned, rules having weak function-altering effects, conflicting rules, lack of speaker credibility, rule plausibility and inconsistency with prior learning, and insufficient reinforcement for rule following. The present paper aims to analyze how these factors might impact responses to climate change, and possible solutions and strategies are discussed. Much of the theory and research on climate-change communication has come from outside of behavior analysis. Thus, the paper also aims to integrate findings from this literature with a behavior-analytic approach to rule control. Interpreting climate warnings and climate solutions in terms of rule-governed behavior may improve our understanding of why such rules are not more effective, and aid in the development of verbal and nonverbal strategies for changing behavior and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Climate Change Education Challenges from Two Different Perspectives of Change Agents: Perceptions of School Students and Pre-Service Teachers

Climate change education (CCE) can play an essential role in pushing forward a climate-just transition. However, educational institutions seem to be challenged to equip students and their prospective teachers with what is necessary for them to become multipliers for climate action. This study aims to provide actionable insights on how to harness the untapped potential of CCE, overcome obstacles, and draw conclusions on which adaptations are necessary to improve current CCE settings. We conducted a qualitative questionnaire study using the example of 80 secondary school students (grade 12) and 18 pre-service teachers (PSTs). The results indicated that both cohorts feel inadequately prepared for their role as possible “change agents”, stating that climate change as a topic is given too little time, engagement with practical examples on taking climate action is inadequate, and a superficial examination of the topic takes place. Students as well as PSTs as change agents are not sufficiently supported by educational institutions to exercise their transformative potential due to numerous identified challenges that have to be confronted at a systemic level. Results indicate that especially teacher training programs need to increasingly focus on the professional development of educators in this field.

Climate Change and Political Controversy in the Science Classroom: How Teachers' Beliefs Influence Instruction

Climate change science is complex and perceived to be controversial in nature by some stakeholders. Yet from the perspective of educators and policy makers, climate change science is an important topic to be taught in secondary science education. The presence of controversy can influence teachers' instructional decisions and cause confusion about the science of climate change. This study examines the complex nature between science teacher beliefs and the impact on their instructional practices of climate change-centered curriculum. Findings from the study suggest teachers have strong beliefs about the causes and implications of climate change. However, due to the controversial nature of the topic, the current US political climate, and fear of resistance from stakeholders, teachers did not espouse these beliefs within their instruction of the curriculum and instead remained "neutral" when teaching about climate change.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11191-022-00330-6.

Climate Change and Emotions: Analysis of People's Emotional States in Southern Ecuador

Climate change involves multiple emotional expressions associated with specific labels, notably: ‘concern,’ ‘guilt,’ or ‘scepticism.’ However, there are other types of emotions that have been less analysed, such as ‘powerlessness,’ ‘anger’ and ‘confusion’ that are of equal importance for predicting behavioural changes toward this climatic issue. Likewise, few studies in this research field rely on qualitative data to understand and identify the causative agents for the emotional arousal. This research explores a range of emotions, mixing those that have been widely studied and those that have been hardly analysed. It also looks at the demographic parameters associated with such emotions using a population sample from southern Ecuador. The study analyses quantitative and qualitative data gathered through structured-questionnaires whereby participants were given agency to select and define how they themselves sense emotionally climate change. The results indicate that two of the five participants’ most selected emotions are shared with other nations (‘concern,’ ‘guilt’), while the other three have been less reported and studied in the climate change field (‘powerlessness,’ ‘anger,’ and ‘confusion’). These emotions were found to be aroused by different reasons associated with specific demographic variables. The findings reveal the role of the cultural and local environment in the emotional arousal and its relevance for designing more effective climate communication campaigns.

Applying the Global Change App in Different Instruction Settings to Foster Climate Change Knowledge among Student Teachers

This study focuses on learning with the Global Change app, an interactive tool for fostering climate change knowledge. Numerous studies have contributed to the question on what type of instruction is best to achieve learning gains. The findings are mixed. We applied the app in university courses and investigated which instructional setting a discovery learning approach (no supplementary guidance) or an approach that leans more toward direct instruction is more effective (+ supplementary guidance). Thus, we distinguished between conceptual and procedural guidance within our direct instruction approach. Our study was implemented in a digital learning environment with 110 students participating in the study. We applied a 2 × 2 experimental design with different types of guidance as treatment (conceptual and procedural). An online questionnaire was administered in pretest and posttest to measure climate change knowledge as well as different variables. Our results show that the app provided gains in climate change knowledge in a short period of time regardless of treatment. Further, students who received no supplementary guidance acquired more knowledge about climate change than the groups that received supplemental guidance (either conceptual, procedural, or both). Learning gain correlated significantly negatively with cognitive load across the whole sample, but there were no significant differences between groups. This finding might be interpreted in terms of the renowned expertise reversal effect.

A potential new front in health communication to encourage vaccination: Health education teachers

OBJECTIVE

To assess the potential for a new channel for effective vaccine health communication in the United States: the nation's health education teachers.

METHODS

Content analysis of current curricular standards governing health education in the fifty states and the District of Columbia, and a 2019 nationally representative survey of middle and high school health education teachers in the United States.

RESULTS

Only 12 states require any discussion of vaccines or immunization, and none provide detailed guidance to teachers on critical knowledge that might help young adults make wise immunization decisions. Only 42% of teachers discuss benefits of vaccination and immunization in their classes. In contrast to the teaching of evolution and climate change, only a small minority (2.4%) are classified as vaccine skeptics.

CONCLUSIONS

Public school health education classes are an under-utilized health communication channel with the unrealized potential to convey medically accurate information to millions of young Americans. Low levels of vaccine skepticism among teachers suggest that this channel can be effectively utilized to improve vaccination uptake and thereby improve collective health outcomes.

Earth Observation as a Facilitator of Climate Change Education in Schools: The Teachers’ Perspectives

Climate change education (CCE) fosters the skills and behavioral patterns of students in regards to climate-related challenges and risks. Despite its importance, the integration of CCE in schools is challenging due to the interdisciplinary nature of climate science and the obstacles and demands of everyday school reality. Here, we examine the case of satellite Remote Sensing (RS) for Earth Observation (EO) as an innovative tool for facilitating CCE. We focus on Greece, a country that, despite being a hot spot for climate change, shows a low level of CCE integration in schools and awareness for EO-based educational resources. Based on interviews with in-service teachers, our research reveals the following: (a) there is a high interest in how satellites depict environmental phenomena; (b) EO is considered an efficient vehicle for promoting CCE in schools because it illustrates climate change impacts most effectively; (c) local natural disasters, such as intense forest fires and floods, are more familiar to students and, thus, preferable for teaching when compared to global issues, such as the greenhouse effect and sea level rise; and (d) educators are in favor of short, hands-on, EO-based activities (also known as “activity-shots”), as the most useful material format for integrating climate change topics in their everyday teaching practice.

Knowledge of Student Teachers on Sustainable Land Use Issues–Knowledge Types Relevant for Teacher Education

For restructuring educational processes and institutions toward Sustainable Development, teachers’ knowledge and competences are crucial. Due to the high relevance of teachers’ content knowledge, this study aimed to (i) assess Sustainable Development-relevant knowledge by differentiating between situational, conceptual and procedural knowledge, (ii) find out via item response theory modelling how these theoretically distinguished knowledge types can be empirically supported, and (iii) link the knowledge dimension(s) to related constructs. We developed a paper-and-pencil test to assess these three knowledge types (N = 314). A two-dimensional structure that combines situational and conceptual knowledge and that distinguishes situational/conceptual knowledge from procedural knowledge, fits the data best (EAP/PV situational/conceptual: 0.63; EAP/PV procedural: 0.67). Student teachers at master level outperformed bachelor level students in situational/conceptual knowledge but master level students did not differ from students at bachelor level regarding procedural knowledge. We observed only slight correlations between the two knowledge dimensions and the content-related motivational orientations of professional action competence. Student teachers’ deficits in procedural knowledge can be attributed to the small number of Education for Sustainable Development-relevant courses attended. Systematically fostering procedural knowledge in teacher education could promote achieving cognitive learning objectives associated with Sustainable Development Goals in the long term.

Topic Specificity and Antecedents for Preservice Biology Teachers' Anticipated Enjoyment for Teaching About Socioscientific Issues: Investigating Universal Values and Psychological Distance

Enjoyment for teaching represents one of the most frequently reported teaching emotions and positively affects student outcomes. Therefore, researchers and teacher educators need to understand its nature and underlying appraisal processes to prepare motivated teachers as part of initial teacher education. Using cross-sectional questionnaire data from 189 German biology preservice teachers (73.5% female, mean_age = 23.45 years, SD_age = 3.71 years), we empirically tested the topic-specific structure and antecedents of participants’ anticipated enjoyment for teaching. We adapted the established Teacher Emotion Scale to measure preservice teachers’ trait-based enjoyment for teaching by reframing the items with the environmental socioscientific issues of the return of wild wolves and climate change and the health socioscientific issue of preimplantation genetic diagnosis. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the best fit of a topic-specific model. We also found different correlations for the anticipated enjoyment for teaching about the issues, but no significant differences in means. Concerning further topic-specific antecedents, the environmentally oriented basic value of universalism predicted the anticipated enjoyment for teaching about the return of wolves, and the socially oriented universal value of benevolence predicted the anticipated enjoyment for teaching about preimplantation genetic diagnosis. Both values inconsistently predicted the anticipated enjoyment for teaching about climate change. While this is in line with the complex nature of this socioscientific issue, psychological distance was a predictor for the anticipated enjoyment for teaching about every topic. While these effects remained stable when controlling for demographic variables, male participants showed a higher anticipated enjoyment for teaching about wolves and about climate change, and female preservice teachers for teaching about preimplantation genetic diagnosis. Further studies are needed to investigate if the results can be transferred to in-service teachers or to other teaching emotions. Furthermore, future studies could examine effects on other factors relevant to teaching emotions such as reactions to student behavior, which have been described as central for the causation of teaching emotions in prior studies (i.e., “reciprocal model of teaching emotions”). The present study stimulates such new studies and adds important knowledge to the understanding of topic specificity and topic-specific antecedents of anticipated enjoyment for teaching, which are relevant for teacher education and professional development.

Tracing Paths from Research to Practice in Climate Change Education

The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate the incorporation of climate change social science research into climate change education practice. Semi-structured interviews with 19 educators from five climate change related professional development programs and networks revealed a high level of awareness of climate change social science research. Educators accessed research through a variety of means and reported both practice change and a sense of validation as a result of the research. They reported shifting toward programs that focused less on climate facts to programs that focused on solutions and that integrated their understanding of audiences’ values and identities. They also reported feeling a conflict between their practice knowledge and the knowledge they gained through professional development and accessing research. This work begins to fill a gap both in our understanding of how nonformal educators communicate about climate change and in how they use research in their practice.

Tipping to Staying on the Ground: Internalized Knowledge of Climate Change Crucial for Transformed Air Travel Behavior

Air travel accounts for a major share of individual greenhouse gas emissions, particularly for people in high-income countries. Until recently, few have reduced flying because of climate concerns, but currently, a movement for staying on the ground is rising. Sweden has been a focal point for this movement, particularly during 2018–2019, when a flight tax was introduced, and air travel reduction was intensely discussed in the media. We performed semi-structured interviews with Swedish residents, focusing primarily on individuals who have reduced flying because of its climate impact. We explore how such individual transformation of air travel behavior comes about, and the phases and components of this process. Applying a framework of sustainability transformation, we identify incentives and barriers in personal and political spheres. We show that internalized knowledge about climate change and the impact of air travel is crucial for instigating behavioral change. Awareness evokes negative emotions leading to a personal tipping point where a decision to reduce or quit flying is made. However, the process is often counteracted by both personal values and political structures promoting air travel. Even individuals with a strong drive to reduce flying feel trapped in social practices, norms and infrastructures. Hence, we argue that personal and political spheres interact complexly and to reduce flying at larger scales, interventions are needed across spheres, e.g., change of norms, effective policy instruments and better alternatives to air travel.

Social tipping dynamics for stabilizing Earth's climate by 2050

Achieving a rapid global decarbonization to stabilize the climate critically depends on activating contagious and fast-spreading processes of social and technological change within the next few years. Drawing on expert elicitation, an expert workshop, and a review of literature, which provides a comprehensive analysis on this topic, we propose concrete interventions to induce positive social tipping dynamics and a rapid global transformation to carbon-neutral societies. These social tipping interventions comprise removing fossil-fuel subsidies and incentivizing decentralized energy generation, building carbon-neutral cities, divesting from assets linked to fossil fuels, revealing the moral implications of fossil fuels, strengthening climate education and engagement, and disclosing greenhouse gas emissions information.

Safely achieving the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement requires a worldwide transformation to carbon-neutral societies within the next 30 y. Accelerated technological progress and policy implementations are required to deliver emissions reductions at rates sufficiently fast to avoid crossing dangerous tipping points in the Earth’s climate system. Here, we discuss and evaluate the potential of social tipping interventions (STIs) that can activate contagious processes of rapidly spreading technologies, behaviors, social norms, and structural reorganization within their functional domains that we refer to as social tipping elements (STEs). STEs are subdomains of the planetary socioeconomic system where the required disruptive change may take place and lead to a sufficiently fast reduction in anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. The results are based on online expert elicitation, a subsequent expert workshop, and a literature review. The STIs that could trigger the tipping of STE subsystems include 1) removing fossil-fuel subsidies and incentivizing decentralized energy generation (STE1, energy production and storage systems), 2) building carbon-neutral cities (STE2, human settlements), 3) divesting from assets linked to fossil fuels (STE3, financial markets), 4) revealing the moral implications of fossil fuels (STE4, norms and value systems), 5) strengthening climate education and engagement (STE5, education system), and 6) disclosing information on greenhouse gas emissions (STE6, information feedbacks). Our research reveals important areas of focus for larger-scale empirical and modeling efforts to better understand the potentials of harnessing social tipping dynamics for climate change mitigation.

Climate Change Education: Mapping the Nature of Climate Change, the Content Knowledge and Examination of Enactment in Upper Secondary Victorian Curriculum

Climate change (CC) is widely accepted as the major threat of our time, posing unprecedented challenges to humanity. Yet very little is known regarding the ways in which upper-secondary curricula address the need to educate about this crisis. This study contributes to the field of CC education theoretically and empirically. From the theoretical perspective, the study contributes two CC conceptualisation frameworks: a characterisation of the nature of CC, and a mapping of the scope of CC content knowledge. The empirical contribution consists of examining CC education implementation within upper-secondary curriculum in the state of Victoria, Australia. Specifically we examined the CC conceptualisation and the scope of content present in the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) study designs. A total of 10 out of 94 study designs qualified for examination through referencing CC. The findings suggest that none of the study designs present a complete conceptualisation of the nature of CC. Common conceptualisations within the study designs perceive CC as a cause or an outcome, a problem of management, or of technological efficiency. CC content within the study designs is limited, and presents misconceptions, including the assumption that CC is a natural change caused by astronomical and solar systems. A cross-curriculum integration approach within the study designs is found to be ineffective. We conclude that CC presents a paradigm shift which brings about the new discipline of CC. There is a need for curricula reforms to address and incorporate CC as a coherent body of knowledge.

Student Teachers’ Knowledge to Enable Problem-Solving for Sustainable Development

Education is a central strategy in terms of sustainable development (SD) and can contribute to solving global challenges like biodiversity loss and climate change. Content knowledge represents one base for teaching education for sustainable development (ESD). Therefore, identifying teaching and learning prerequisites regarding SD challenges in teacher education is crucial. The focus of the paper was to assess and learn more about student teachers’ procedural knowledge regarding issues of biodiversity and climate change, by using an expert benchmark. The aims of the study are to describe and identify (i) differences between students’ and experts’ effectiveness estimations, (ii) differences in bachelor and master students’ procedural knowledge, and (iii) differences between procedural knowledge of students studying different ESD-relevant subjects. Student teachers at eight German universities (n = 236) evaluated the effectiveness of solution strategies to SD challenges. The results showed high deviations in the effectiveness estimations of experts and students and, therefore, differing procedural knowledge. The lack of student teachers’ interdisciplinary knowledge to reduce biodiversity loss and climate change seemed to be largely independent of their study program and ESD-relevant subject. One reason for this may be the generally low number of ESD-relevant courses they attended. This study suggests further longitudinal research in order to make clear statements about changes in SD-related knowledge during teacher education.

Understanding and Countering Misinformation About Climate Change

While there is overwhelming scientific agreement on climate change, the public has become polarized over fundamental questions such as human-caused global warming. Communication strategies to reduce polarization rarely address the underlying cause: ideologically-driven misinformation. In order to effectively counter misinformation campaigns, scientists, communicators, and educators need to understand the arguments and techniques in climate science denial, as well as adopt evidence-based approaches to neutralizing misinforming content. This chapter reviews analyses of climate misinformation, outlining a range of denialist arguments and fallacies. Identifying and deconstructing these different types of arguments is necessary to design appropriate interventions that effectively neutralize the misinformation. This chapter also reviews research into how to counter misinformation using communication interventions such as inoculation, educational approaches such as misconception-based learning, and the interdisciplinary combination of technology and psychology known as technocognition.

Do Pre-service Teachers Dance with Wolves? Subject-Specific Teacher Professional Development in A Recent Biodiversity Conservation Issue

Biodiversity conservation issues are adequate topics of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), as they involve ecological, economic and social aspects. But teaching about these topics often challenges teachers due to high factual complexity but also because of additional affective dimensions. As a consequence, teacher professional development in ESD should address these affective components, to better qualify and motivate teachers to integrate conservation issues into their teaching. To investigate behaviourally relevant factors, we selected the context of natural remigration and conservation of the grey wolf (Canis lupus) in Germany and surveyed 120 pre-service biology teachers (M = 23.2 years, SD = 3.3 years) about contextual factors and their motivation to teach about the issue. Participants reported more positive attitudes, higher enjoyment and an increased perceived behavioural control towards teaching the issue in future teachers when they perceived a smaller psychological distance to the issue and an overall higher motivation to protect the species. As this motivation was grounded in more fundamental personality characteristics like wildlife values and attitudes towards wolves, we discuss the central role of these traits as a basis for transformative learning processes and the necessity of a holistic and subject-specific teacher professional development in ESD.

Longitudinal Study of the Impacts of a Climate Change Curriculum on Undergraduate Student Learning: Initial Results

The present study assesses the efficacy of a semester-long undergraduate sustainability curriculum designed from a systems approach. The three-course curriculum, which incorporated environmental science and ethics courses along with an integrative course using a community-based learning pedagogy, was intended to provide students with experience using knowledge and skills from distinct disciplines in a holistic way in order to address the complex problems of the human acceptance of and response to anthropogenic climate change. In the fall of 2013, 23 of the 24 sophomore general education students enrolled in the three courses were surveyed at the beginning and end of the semester; 17 of those same students completed the survey again in the spring of 2016, their senior year. Results, which focus on the 17 students who continued to participate through their senior year, were analyzed with quantitative and qualitative methodologies. The pre/post data from the surveys demonstrated significant improvement in climate literacy, certainty, concern and urgency over the course of the semester; the senior data indicated that those improvements were largely retained. The study also suggests that the nine-credit curriculum improved transferable skills such as interdisciplinary thinking, self-confidence and public speaking. A qualitative analysis of three student cases, informed by a focus group (n = 7) of seniors along with other sources of information, suggested retention of such transferable skills, and, in some cases, deeper involvement in climate and sustainability action.

The Future of CRISPR Applications in the Lab, the Clinic and Society

CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) has emerged as one of the premiere biological tools of the century. Even more so than older genome editing techniques such as TALENs and ZFNs, CRISPR provides speed and ease-of-use heretofore unheard of in agriculture, the environment and human health. The ability to map the function of virtually every component of the genome in a scalable, multiplexed manner is unprecedented. Once those regions have been explored, CRISPR also presents an opportunity to take advantage of endogenous cellular repair pathways to change and precisely edit the genome [1-3]. In the case of human health, CRISPR operates as both a tool of discovery and a solution to fundamental problems behind disease and undesirable mutations.

How Climate Change Beliefs among U.S. Teachers Do and Do Not Translate to Students

Research suggests climate change beliefs among science teachers mirror those of the general public, raising questions of whether teachers may be perpetuating polarization of public opinion through their classrooms. We began answering these questions with a survey of middle school science teachers (n = 24) and their students (n = 369) in North Carolina, USA. Similar to previous studies, we found that though nearly all (92.1%) of students had teachers who believe that global warming is happening, few (12%) are in classrooms with teachers who recognize that global warming is anthropogenic. We found that teacher beliefs that global warming is happening and student climate change knowledge were the strongest predictors of student belief that global warming is happening and human caused. Conversely, teacher beliefs about human causes of global warming had no relationship with student beliefs, suggesting that science teachers’ low recognition of the causes of global warming is not necessarily problematic in terms of student outcomes. These findings may be explained by previous research suggesting adolescents interpret scientific information relatively independently of ideological constraints. Though teacher polarization may be problematic in its own right, it appears that as long as climate change information is presented in classrooms, students deduce anthropogenic causes.

Bringing Climate Change into the Life Science Classroom: Essentials, Impacts on Life, and Addressing Misconceptions

Most life science educators are unaware of the scientific consensus regarding climate change. This Feature highlights free online resources to teach climate change, including research summaries, materials about the life science impacts of climate change, and resources that address common misconceptions and “skeptical” arguments.