How mixed messages may be better than avoidance in climate change education

Polarization around climate change viewpoints — including climate change concern and commitment to action — continues to be a persistent challenge to collective action in the United States, and across the globe. Multiple studies have found that K-12 science teacher perceptions of climate change reflect that of the general population, raising concerns that education may be replicating among students the polarization found among adults. However, few have examined how approaches to teaching climate change may be linked to climate change concern and behavior among students. We began to address this gap with a pre/post-survey of 354 middle school students from eight science classrooms across North Carolina and their teachers. We measured changes in climate change concern and behavior among students, student-reported frequency of discussing climate change in class, and teacher-reported approach to teaching climate change as consistent with the scientific consensus (climate change is attributed to human activity, 13.2% of students in these classes); mixed messages (scientists think climate change is attributed to both human and natural causes, 53.2% of students); denial (scientists think climate change is attributed to natural causes, none of students); and avoidance (not discussing causes of climate change, 33.5% of students). We also controlled for socioeconomic status (Title I) and location (rural versus urban) of the school. We detected gains in both concern and behavior across all teaching approaches. We also found frequency of school-based discussion about climate change was the most predictive of gains in concern, but no measured factors predicted gains in behavior. Baseline concern and behavior levels did vary across the different treatment approaches, with lower baseline concern and levels found among teachers who take avoidance and mixed messages approaches. Together, these results suggest that cultural contexts may be the drivers of both teaching approaches and student climate change concern and behavior, but variations in teaching approaches are not polarizing forces themselves. Instead, encouraging classroom-based conservations about climate may boost concern levels, even in cultural contexts that do not prioritize scientific consensus about climate change drivers. These findings may provide guidance for teaching climate change as well as other politically fraught topics.