Cara Augustenborg speaking at Mount Anville secondary school, 2015 This week, I’m blogging from Dublin City University’s Celsius Seminar 'Communicating climate change', where I was asked to address the question, “How do we communicate climate change to the next generation?” There are plenty of good reasons to focus specifically on educating young people about climate change, but the three reasons that drive me to reach out to this segment of society are:
- Intergenerational justice: UNICEF describes climate change as a “children’s problem”. We know that the impacts of climate change will affect our children and grandchildren more than it currently impacts us. As adults who have contributed to causing this problem, we have to answer to the next generation for our decisions today and involve young people in the solutions to climate change. This begins by educating them about the issue.
- School children as educators: It’s well known that children can influence their parents’ behaviour with respect to environmental impacts. We’ve seen this demonstrated with recycling where evidence shows that parents of children who are educated on recycling will recycle more than the parents of children who are not educated on the issue. The same idea can be applied to climate change. As parents, we know how much our kids love to tell us when we’re doing something wrong, and we can just imagine how quick they’d be to point out how mom and dad's actions impact climate change if they were informed themselves.
- Young people as future voters: It’s unfortunate that young people have so little say in our policies on climate action because they will be the ones who have to deal with the consequences if we fail to solve the problem. The right to vote is one of the few ways ordinary citizens have to influence policy. I see young people as our country’s future voters who need to be educated on one of the most significant issues facing them when they reach adulthood.
Raising climate change awareness with the Climate Reality project
Climate Reality Leadership Corp training, Istanbul, 2013 In 2013, I joined Al Gore’s Climate Reality Leadership Corps, which is a global grassroots movement to raise awareness and action on climate change. As a Climate Leader, I committed to giving a version of Al Gore’s famous slideshow here in Ireland at least ten times in the 12 months following my training. I decided to target my efforts on teenagers, but I was concerned about instilling fear in a segment of society that has so little say in addressing the problem. In order to determine if that might happen, I collected data via anonymous surveys on the students’ thoughts on climate change both before and after presenting my Climate Reality talk to them.
Over the last year and a half, I’ve presented the Climate Reality talk to over 600 students at seven secondary schools in Ireland. This past Thursday at DCU, I presented preliminary data from the first four schools to help other science communicators improve the way we educate young people about climate change. Below, I describe some of my preliminary findings based on surveys from 237 secondary students (ages 12-18). You can see the slideshow related to my presentation at DCU here.
Over the last year and a half, I’ve presented the Climate Reality talk to over 600 students at seven secondary schools in Ireland. This past Thursday at DCU, I presented preliminary data from the first four schools to help other science communicators improve the way we educate young people about climate change. Below, I describe some of my preliminary findings based on surveys from 237 secondary students (ages 12-18). You can see the slideshow related to my presentation at DCU here.
Knowledge and feelings on climate change
Even before I presented my climate talk to students, 76% said they had already received education in climate change (usually in their geography classes). Approximately 50% of them felt they had a moderate understanding of the topic, while 24% felt their understanding of climate change was poor.
When asked what their strongest feelings about climate change were, students said they felt “concerned”, “powerless”, “worried” and “alarmed” but also “fascinated” and “inquisitive”. While they recognised the serious nature of climate change, they were also curious and interested in the topic.
When asked what their strongest feelings about climate change were, students said they felt “concerned”, “powerless”, “worried” and “alarmed” but also “fascinated” and “inquisitive”. While they recognised the serious nature of climate change, they were also curious and interested in the topic.
Climate Reality: How I communicate climate change to teenagers
When I meet with secondary school students, I usually introduce climate change by starting with the basic science of our Earth’s atmosphere and how greenhouse gases and the greenhouse effect cause global warming and climate change. Once we’ve established the basics, I explain some of the impacts of climate change. I emphasise the link between climate change and extreme weather because it’s an impact they’re likely to witness in Ireland over the coming years. We end with a discussion of all the solutions available to help stop climate chaos, paying particular attention to the renewable energy technologies available to remove our dependency on fossil fuels.
When students were asked what their favourite part of the talk was, their top answer was the link between weather and climate. This may be due, in part, to some dramatic video footage I present from Al Gore of Hurricane Sandy (2012) with narration from the Governor of New York and President Barack Obama explaining the link between climate change and super storms like Hurricane Sandy. Kids love movies and the excitement of natural disasters, so it’s probably no surprise that this part of my presentation entertains them and sticks in their memory.
The survey generally showed that students responded best to the parts of my talk involving animations and videos and to the personal human interest stories that I bring in to my talk, such as my interview with the Inupiat people in Arctic Alaska.
When students were asked what their favourite part of the talk was, their top answer was the link between weather and climate. This may be due, in part, to some dramatic video footage I present from Al Gore of Hurricane Sandy (2012) with narration from the Governor of New York and President Barack Obama explaining the link between climate change and super storms like Hurricane Sandy. Kids love movies and the excitement of natural disasters, so it’s probably no surprise that this part of my presentation entertains them and sticks in their memory.
The survey generally showed that students responded best to the parts of my talk involving animations and videos and to the personal human interest stories that I bring in to my talk, such as my interview with the Inupiat people in Arctic Alaska.
What’s the impact of communicating climate change to teenagers?
After the Climate Reality talk, students indicated they were interested in learning more about solutions to climate change than any other aspect. This included both the kind of actions they could take personally to reduce their impact on climate change and more detail on the kind of renewable energy technologies that are available to help solve the problem globally. 76% of students felt they had a strong understanding of climate change (compared to 26% before the talk). Over 80% of the students said they were more interested in the topic of climate change as a result of the talk, and 68% said they were more interested in taking action to help stop climate change. While the students felt more “concerned” and “alarmed” following the talk, they also said they were more “fascinated”, and less “confused”, “bored” or “helpless” as a result of being more informed on climate change.
2015 Model European Council (RTE)
Conclusion: How do we communicate climate change to the next generation?
The preliminary results from my survey show that just one hour of climate change education can have a substantial impact on the mind of a teenager by increasing their perceived understanding of climate change and raising their interest level on the subject.
When we communicate with young people on climate change, it’s important to achieve a balance between educating them on the serious nature of the problem and inspiring them to want to engage more with the issue. We have to ensure that our content doesn't just worry them by focusing solely on the potential impacts that climate change can have. We must emphasise solutions and give them avenues for participating in those solutions as young people.
As I say good bye to students, I always ask them to consider that the next time a political candidate calls to their door, they ask that candidate what they’re doing to help solve climate change. I point out that if that politician is not doing anything about climate change right now, he/she is leaving the problem for the next generation to sort out. If just one student engages with a politician on climate change as a result of my climate talk, it will make all of my efforts to reach out to these precious members of our society worthwhile.
Keep fighting the good fight!
-Cara
When we communicate with young people on climate change, it’s important to achieve a balance between educating them on the serious nature of the problem and inspiring them to want to engage more with the issue. We have to ensure that our content doesn't just worry them by focusing solely on the potential impacts that climate change can have. We must emphasise solutions and give them avenues for participating in those solutions as young people.
As I say good bye to students, I always ask them to consider that the next time a political candidate calls to their door, they ask that candidate what they’re doing to help solve climate change. I point out that if that politician is not doing anything about climate change right now, he/she is leaving the problem for the next generation to sort out. If just one student engages with a politician on climate change as a result of my climate talk, it will make all of my efforts to reach out to these precious members of our society worthwhile.
Keep fighting the good fight!
-Cara
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