High School Experiences and Climate Change Beliefs of First Year College Students in the United States

Climate change has not been well understood by high school students in the US and the topic is often connected to misconceptions, which is especially damaging since accurate understandings of the concepts are strongly predictive of intent to do something about it. We use data from a national (US) survey of first year college students to identify high school experiences which correlate with the belief that climate change is caused by human activities. In-class coverage of climate change is less predictive of belief than time spent on science homework or science-themed extracurricular activities. These correlations suggest that simply covering climate change in class may not necessarily lead to greater belief in the scientific consensus. While deeper understanding is a worthy goal, the results indicate that, when it comes to high school science education, social factors such as the process and culture of education are also important for belief in climate change. These finding aligns with previous research about college students, which suggest student activities are more strongly correlated with student viewpoints than professor beliefs. Given the potential for curricula to become politicized these finding suggests an alternative route to achieve climate change education goals.