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Conducting a climate change presentation or workshop can be uncomfortable for adult educators because they do not want to alienate audiences or diminish their credibility among those who doubt climate change is a problem. Trust in the speaker is a key element for successful communication, and perhaps essential when conveying information about a controversial issue. We review three forest-related workshops, treated as cases, and based on audience responses offer a series of suggestions for building and maintaining trust in the context of climate change programming.

Climate communication research suggests strategic message framing may help build public consensus on climate change causes, risks and solutions. However, few have investigated how framing applies to adolescents. Similarly, little research has focused on agricultural audiences, who are among the most vulnerable to and least accepting of climate change. Among 950 high school agriculture students in North Carolina, we found agriculture and environment framing of climate change, but not community and health frames, elicited feelings of worry, and these together with community frames elicited hope. Further, students feeling more worry were more supportive of individual and collective action. Those accepting climate change and females had more emotive responses and higher support for all action measures, and acceptance of human causes predicted more worry and support for collective action. We find these results encouraging as agriculture teachers likely employ agriculture and environment frames when following best teaching practices.

Climate change is a highly charged topic that some adults prefer to ignore. If the same holds true for secondary students, teachers could be challenged to teach about climate change. We structured one activity about the biological concepts of carbon cycle and carbon sequestration in two ways: with and without mention of climate change. Results suggested that students (n = 22) who learned about carbon in the context of climate change made significant improvements in their knowledge of the carbon cycle and sequestration over those (n = 24) who learned about carbon without mention of climate change. Interest in climate change may increase learning.

This research study investigated the learning outcomes of a brief systems thinking intervention at the undergraduate level. A pre/post experimental design (n = 50) was used to address two primary questions: (1) Can a brief introduction to systems thinking improve students' understanding of systems thinking? and (2) Which teaching method (of two) works best under such time constraints? Participants were divided into three groups: control, lecture only, and model demonstration. Test results suggest that both lecture-only and model-manipulation groups increased their understanding of systems thinking slightly over the control group, but showed no significant difference between each other. Results from focus groups conducted 3 months after the intervention suggest that model-manipulation participants may have been more successful than lecture-only participants at incorporating systems thinking into their own mental models to understand an ecological system.

The Cooperative Extension Service (Extension) in the United States is well positioned to educate the public, particularly farmers and foresters, about climate change and to encourage responsible adoption of adaptation and mitigation strategies. However, the climate change attitudes and perceptions of Extension professionals have limited Extension's involvement. A survey of Extension professionals (n?=?2758) in eight southern states found several statistically significant factors correlating to different attitudes and perceptions about climate change, such as demographics and program area. Willingness to engage with climate change-related programs varies with climate change perceptions, program area, and perceptions of institutional support. This assessment explores the extent to which the climate change issue suggests different needs among Extension professionals--needs that could be addressed by diverse professional development programs. We discuss these results in the context of homophily and provide recommendations to improve climate change education.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe the importance of a focus on ethics in sustainability education and present results from a pilot graduate-level course titled the Ethics of Sustainability. Design/methodology/approach: This is a case study presenting a qualitative evaluation from a pilot 14-week Ethics of Sustainability course. Data are based on observations, surveys and interviews with students. Findings: Students from diverse fields found the ethical concepts new, stimulating and crucial for their careers. Ethical concepts provide a framework for thinking about sustainable practices in their personal and professional lives. Research limitations/implications: Findings are based on a single pilot course and post-participation responses. Future research could explore different teaching strategies and different institutions, and use pre/post studies. Practical implications: This study suggests that a course on ethical principles related to sustainability is a useful and potentially critical component to any curriculum intending to prepare future professionals to be effective contributors to a sustainable society. Higher education may adopt the course concepts and learning tools to enhance their curriculum and businesses and corporations will benefit from entry-level professionals with a solid ethical foundation for making more sustainability-oriented decisions. Originality/value: The paper discusses an innovative course designed with funding from the US National Science Foundation. It confirms the benefit and provides some content advice for a course oriented toward ethics in sustainability curricula. (Contains 1 table and 2 figures.)

Environmental education (EE) includes a broad range of teaching methods, topics, audiences, and educators. EE professionals have worked over the last 30 years to provide distinct definitions, guides, objectives, and standards that will help educators know how to differentiate environmental education from other educational efforts and how to deliver it effectively. This article incorporates several recent frameworks of educational strategies into one that has usefulness to formal and nonformal educators as well as communicators. Our purpose is not to redefine EE, but to provide a framework that can help practitioners consider a suite of possible purposes and interventions that can belong under the umbrella of EE. We define four categories of EE according to their purpose: Convey Information, Build Understanding, Improve Skills, and Enable Sustainable Actions. (Contains 2 tables, 2 figures and 2 footnotes.)

Described is a skit to be performed in an elementary school classroom about the water cycle. Included are a list of materials, procedures, and suggestions for role cards for the players. (CW)

Presents a survey of Michigan educators that indicates which teaching strategies are the most important. Discusses the implications of building familiarity with environmental issues and solutions from a variety of examples. Provides an explanation for the low success of classroom action projects. (Author/CW)

This study uses bibliometric techniques to explore the international knowledge base on climate change education (CCE), which considers education as crucial for addressing the climate emergency through fostering climate-literate citizens. Analyzing two decades of scientific literature on CCE, we identify evolving considerations, foci, trends, and recommendations, examining a total of 1,264 articles published between 2000 and 2022 in educational-related fields in Web of Science. Using bibliometric techniques, we assessed research trends, author co-citations and journal citations to reveal an evolving publication landscape, including shifts in locations of productive researchers, influential articles, and leading journals publishing CCE studies. Bibliometric techniques help to identify the intellectual knowledge structure and inter-journal referencing, encompassing Theoretical Basis of CCE, Psychology of CCE and Communication, Climate Change within Socioscientific Issues, Conceptions of Climate Change, and Epistemology in CCE. Based on the trends, association networks, limitations and gaps revealed by this analysis, we conclude with suggestions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A simple matrix that can be used as a tool for analyzing environmental actions is presented. By using this matrix and focusing on examples of efforts to resolve environmental issues, students can build a mental model of how environmental problems are solved. (KR)

The article discusses the results of a study on the effectiveness of virtual nursing education on how nurses can manage patients with alpha-gal allergy (AGA). Topics mentioned include the ability of nurses to prevent the anaphylactic reaction the can cause patient's death, the role of nurses in caring patients with AGA, and the key components of questions about AGA and nurses' response on pretest and posttest.

Increased interest in climate change education and the growing recognition of the challenges inherent to addressing this issue create an opportunity to conduct a systematic review to understand what research can contribute to our ideas about effective climate change education. An academic database, EBSCOhost, was used to identify 959 unique citation records addressing climate change education. Of these, 49 sources met the criteria of focusing on assessment of climate change education interventions. Analysis of these sources examined the intervention purpose, assessment methodology, and identified strategies that might result in effective interventions. Two themes were identified that are common to most environmental education: (1) focusing on personally relevant and meaningful information and (2) using active and engaging teaching methods. Four themes specific to issues such as climate change were also generated: (1) engaging in deliberative discussions, (2) interacting with scientists, (3) addressing misconceptions, and (4) implementing school or community projects. Suggestions for addressing controversial topics like climate change are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental education (EE) is a learning process that increases people's knowledge and awareness about the environment and prepares learners to be environmentally responsible citizens (UNESCO, 1978). One common approach to integrating EE into the formal education sector is to infuse EE into existing lessons or units in subjects such as science, history, and social studies (Monroe & Cappaert, 1994; Ramsey et al., 1992). A variety of supplemental resources have been developed to assist teachers with this process. Project WILD, Project WET, and Project Learning Tree are among the most widely used and nationally known EE programs in the United States. Together, they contain hundreds of lessons that are easy for teachers to use in the classroom to convey concepts and practice skills. These materials are well received because they bring a balanced focus to popular environmental concepts and encourage teaching methods such as cooperative learning, constructivism, and utilization of higher-order thinking skills. These EE materials are only available through workshops, which are typically offered to preservice students or in-service teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]