Climate Literacy—Imperative Competencies for Tomorrow’s Engineers

Engineers must take a leading role in addressing the challenges of mitigating climate change and adapting to the inevitable changes that our world is facing. To improve climate literacy, technical education must include problem formulation and solutions that consider complex interactions between engineered, Earth, and societal systems, including trade-offs among benefits, costs, and risks. Improving engineering students’ climate literacy must also inspire students’ motivation to work toward climate solutions. This paper highlights the content and pedagogical approach used in a class for engineering students that helped contribute to significant gains in engineering students’ climate literacy and critical thinking competencies. A total of 89 students fully participated in a pre/post climate literacy questionnaire over four years of study. As a whole, students demonstrated significant gains in climate-related content knowledge, affect, and behavior. Substantial differences were observed between students in different engineering disciplines and male vs. female students. Assessment of critical thinking showed that students did an excellent job formulating problem statements and solutions in a manner that incorporated a multidimensional systems perspective. These skills are critical for students to address climate change effectively in their eventual professions.

Climate literacy among undergraduate students who study science in Los Angeles

Purpose This study aims to analyze undergraduate science majors’ perceptions of climate change. Design/methodology/approach Three science major student cohorts at Loyola Marymount University – first-year exposure (first-years taking a course related to climate science), first-year control (first-years taking a course unrelated to climate science) and non-first-year exposure (non-first-years interested in climate science taking a related course) – were given a climate literacy survey at the beginning and end of each course. Student perceptions were also compared with national and local data. Findings First-year students exposed to the topic showed increased awareness of climate change, trust in climate scientists and acknowledgment of the scientific consensus. Exposure also increased the non-first-year cohort’s awareness that global warming is already affecting the country. All three cohorts showed greater awareness of humanity’s role in causing climate change than the public. However, misconceptions regarding technical concepts persisted throughout. Research limitations/implications This was a single-institution study in Los Angeles with a limited sample. Exposure to specific topics varied between cohorts, depending on the learning outcomes of each course. Originality/value Undergraduate science majors have a greater understanding of climate change’s anthropogenic nature compared with local and national populations. First-year students have a lower initial understanding of climate change and less trust in climate scientists than non-first-year students interested in the topic. All science majors can improve their understanding of general concepts and strengthen their confidence in scientists by taking a relevant course. Students struggle to learn specific technical concepts, but can improve their short-term comprehension through studying.

Analysis on Climate Literacy Capacity of Level XI High School Students in Surabaya

The climate problem today caused damage to infrastructures and many other living elements among mankind. As the prospected future leaders, students need to understand and to respond the effects of climate change. A person with climate literacy may enhance their ability and capacity to face climate challenges in the future. Climate literacy is the understanding of the influence of self and society on the climate. This research is conducted to give a general picture of climate literacy among high school students in Surabaya and each indicator in climate competency aspects. The methodology used in this research is a descriptive qualitative method. The research instrument used in this research is a climate literacy test. The valuation of climate literacy capacity of the students being done by giving scores manually from the test answers according to the scoring guideline in the scoring rubric and achievement results with categories as very high, high, moderate, low, and very low. The research samples are 107 high school students at level XI in SMAN 22 Surabaya (Public High School 22 Surabaya). According to the research, the students’ indicator in scientific identifying is low with a score percentage of 48.9%. The students’ indicator in explaining the scientific phenomenon is moderate with a score of 74.5%, while students’ indicator score in using scientific evidence is moderate with 68.6%. It could be said that high school students in SMAN 22 Surabaya as a whole have a moderate climate literacy capacity with a percentage score of 64%.

The Impacts of a Climate Change SSI-STEAM Program on Junior High School Students’ Climate Literacy

This study aims to investigate climate literacy among junior high school students participating in an SSI-STEAM climate change education program and to examine the impacts of the program on the cultivation of climate literacy. Thirty-one eighth-grade students in Seoul, Korea, participated in this study. Data were collected using pre- and post-program surveys with a climate literacy questionnaire (CLQ), students’ background survey questions, interviews with participants, and from the artifacts produced by students during the program. Participants’ climate literacy was shown to improve substantially after attending the program, especially in the domains of perception and action. The four characteristics of climate literacy change were identified in the participants’ responses: more concrete ideas, extension of the scope of thinking, positive responsibility, and relevance recognition. The climate literacy program developed showed potential for fostering young people’s climate literacy along with their understanding of responsible national and global citizenship. The study discusses the implications of these findings and includes suggestions for future climate literacy program development and for both curricular and extra-curricular climate change education that can together nurture students’ more profound understanding of climate change.

Climate Change: Climate Literacy and Response among USM Students

Climate change is a serious issue that not only affects Malaysia but also worldwide. Previous studies found that climate literacy may have a significant relationship with climate response while the level of education does not affect climate literacy. Thus, this study was conducted to gauge the level of climate literacy as well as their responses for Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) students. A mobile climate application named SmaCli is proposed at the end of this study to address the issue of negative response towards climate change. The featuresof SmaCli are based on responses solicited from the questionnaire and the aim is to enhance climate literacy and encourage positive responses. However, for this paper, the prototype of the application is not included. A total of 196 responses were collected which consists of postgraduate and undergraduate students. The study found that 66% of the respondents have high literacy on climate change, level of education has no significant relationship with climate literacy level, mitigation act (climate response) showed a significant relationship with climate literacy level, and adaptation act (climate response) has no significant relationship with climate literacy. Hence, a concerted effort is still needed to improve climate literacy levels to ensure a positive climate response.

Defining Terms for Climate Literacy

<div> </div><div>To move forward with substantial, constructive actions that reduce overall consumption and emissions, the public, scientists and policymakers need agreement about our terms. Terms like "sustainability," "zero-emissions" and "carbon-neutrality" tend to focus on a device or vehicle's energy use and emissions during operation--and to exclude energy use and emission during extraction, smelting, manufacturing and recycling or discard. What do such exclusions mean for e-vehicles, smartphones and solar panels? How can we encourage learning about and reducing electronics' true costs? Katie Singer will describe the process involved in manufacturing electronic-grade silicon (similar to solar-grade silicon), and propose that every Internet user learn the international supply chain of one substance (of 1000+) in their device. She will also propose ways to counterbalance a digital footprint. </div>

Using Remote Sensing Technologies to Improve Climate Literacy of Students at the Junior Academy of Sciences of Ukrain

<p>The Junior Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (JASU) is a state-funded extracurricular educational system that develops and implements methods of science education. Climate education is an essential component of educational system at the JASU. Currently, the JASU has more than 250,000 students working in 64 scientific areas. In 2018, the Junior Academy of Sciences of Ukraine received the status of Category 2 Science Education Center under the auspices of UNESCO and joined the network of Copernicus Academies.</p><p>          In 2012, a new section, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Remote Sensing of the Earth (RS), was established at the Kyiv branch of the JASU, which is supervised by the GIS and RS Laboratory. Whereas the Fourth Industrial Revolution is characterized by a booming growth of IT and unprecedented environmental problems and climate changes, the Junior Academy of Sciences of Ukraine aims not only to prepare modern students for life in new environment, but also to improve their climate literacy. Therefore, the GIS and RS Laboratory set a goal to teach the students to utilize modern technologies for monitoring environmental conditions of a particular area through analysis of satellite imagery within the framework of the All-Ukrainian Competition, “Ecopohliad” (Ecoview) (hereinafter referred to as the “Competition”).</p><p>          Every day we receive arrays of spatial data that are published on the Internet. However, without proper analysis and, most importantly, interpretation, such data are deposits of rough diamonds hiding in rock formations. Knowledge of the sources and ways to analyse satellite imagery enables us to independently verify the information provided by the media or official statistics. In its activities, the Laboratory uses extensively cloud services, EO Browser and Giovanni, which are characterized by intuitive interface and large array of available satellite imagery.</p><p>          The Competition was held for the first time in 2019-2020. It was attended by 341 secondary school students. Topics of competition projects chosen by the students were mostly related to the climate change at their places of residence. In particular, Artem Shelestov examined the relationship between the area of greenery in Kyiv city using Sentinel-2 satellite images and average annual air concentration of PM 2.5 based on surveillance sensors data. Bohdan Avramenko examined the traffic load on the air in the city of Starobilsk, compared the data with the information from Sentinel-5P satellite, and developed appropriate recommendations.  Marharyta Korol analysed the scale and consequences of the fire that occurred in September 2019 in the village of Novi Sokoly near the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant, and the impact of this emergency situation on air pollution.</p><p>          These studies were not only of scientific interest, but also of practical importance. In particular, the results of investigations conducted by Competition winners were published in the media.</p>