Science Majors Better Understand Climate Change

People learn about climate change from a number of sources, including family and friends, environmental coursework, and the media. All of these sources of information have the potential to deliver inaccurate information. Understanding how climate change works is crucial to achieve sustainability as climate science underpins the need to reduce fossil fuels. In a university, students taking a course from faculty with expertise in climate change are likely to receive information aligned with the scientific consensus that humans are causing climate change. However, faculty from other disciplines with less expertise on the topic may also teach about climate change, which could contribute to misunderstandings among students. In addition, students may enter college with preconceived and incorrect information about climate change. This study sought to explore the relationship between a student's major and their knowledge of and attitude towards climate change.

The authors of this study used a 48-question survey to analyze college students' knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors in relation to climate change. The researchers chose to examine attitudes and behaviors in addition to knowledge because knowledge is not necessarily correlated with pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors. For example, students with low levels of climate change knowledge may still exhibit pro-environmental behaviors. The survey was distributed to 264 students at a large university in the Midwest. Most courses focused on climate change were taught in Geography, and the researchers received survey responses from all departments in the university. Researchers collected descriptive statistics and analyzed differences in the attitudes and knowledge of students among different departments. Answers from the three open-ended survey questions were analyzed to determine common themes.

The authors found that participants in the science majors with climate change coursework exhibited more knowledge of and positive attitudes towards climate change. Results showed low levels of overall climate change knowledge among participants. Out of a possible score of 12, the average participant knowledge score was 7.08, or roughly 60%. However, when examining participant attitudes, the researchers found that most respondents accepted anthropogenic climate change and were in favor of sustainability actions. The highest knowledge levels and most favorable attitudes towards climate change were found among science majors, specifically Agricultural Science majors. Engineering and Mass Communications majors had the lowest climate science knowledge.

Approximately 85% of student participants reported that they had formed their opinions on climate change before coming to college. When asked about how they learned this information, participants pointed to school and media. However, conflictingly, when asked to describe which sources they trusted, participants indicated the lowest trust in media (as well as religious leaders and politicians) and highest trust in scientists.

This study is limited by the fact that convenience sampling was used to collect data. The survey was distributed in-person on a limited number of days, which did not allow for all students at the university to participate. Thus, the sample was not truly random. This could be detrimental for the data collection process because the sample of students surveyed may not have been completely representative of the student body. The survey in this study did not differentiate between types of media sources, so future studies are recommended to examine the ways in which people use different media sources to obtain information on climate change.

The authors recommend improvements in climate science literacy in the U.S. at multiple education levels. They argue that the way forward is to educate younger generations, specifically youth in grades K-12. Specifically, their findings indicate that the topics that are least well understood are the difference between climate and weather, the energy balance, the ozone, and global temperature increases. The authors also note that both K-12 and college educators should encourage students to think critically when it comes to interpreting climate change information from the media.