Coverage of climate change in introductory biology textbooks, 1970–2019

concerns increased substantially. Sentences addressing extreme weather events remained sta- ble, and ocean topics remained among the least covered, though the coverage is increasing (Fig 5). We also further analyzed sentences related to actionable solutions for climate change. Con- sistently, actions that focused on national or international responsibilities were presented over four times more than individual or local solutions. Fig 2. Comparison Between Textbook Coverage of Climate Change and (a) Research Publications, (b) Global Temperatures. (a) The number of research publications between 1970 and 2019 has grown exponentially, but the proportion of textbook coverage has decreased from one textbook sentence per 200 scientific publications to one textbook sentence per 1,100 scientific publications. (b) Textbook coverage and global temperature anomalies have grown more proportional over time, though the 2010– 2019 median textbook coverage declined sharply compared to rising global temperatures. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278532.g002 Fig 3. Location of passage addressing climate change in college introductory biology textbooks. Climate change coverage has been consistently presented toward the end of the textbook, though has moved further toward the end in more recent books. The median start location, ranged in the last 2–5% of the book over the last three decades. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278532.g003 PLOS ONE Climate change in biology textbooks, 1970–2019 PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278532 December 21, 2022 8 / 16