The role of climate change education on individual lifetime carbon emissions

5.2. Creating change in a community of their choice Another design element of the course was to provide students with real-world experience cre- ating and implementing an action plan to reduce carbon emissions, an activity aligned with the empowerment variable. The Community Action Project (CAP) was the culminating expe- rience where student teams competed to develop the most impactful community-based proj- ect. The goal of the CAP was to give students real-world experience developing solutions to climate change. It was our intention that through this experience, students would not only bet- ter understand some of the challenges associated with creating change but also gain confidence that change can happen through well-designed efforts. [45] found that using issue investigation and action training was an effective way to promote pro-environmental behavior. And [46] found that students were deeply affected by their service-learning course even years after the experience. The COMM 168 course was focused around the year-long CAP, and feedback from the focus groups shared how impactful the project was for some of the students, as a majority of the focus group participants mentioned the CAP as the most memorable part of the course. Our conclusion that the CAP promoted engagement and student empowerment has also been recognized in various other climate change education programs as a key element in creating effective learning experiences [23]. 5.3. Creating a culture devoted to stewardship and action

The third aspect of the course that we feel was important to creating impactful and lasting change was the social norms that were established during the year-long course. Although we did not create any design elements at the start of the course to promote this, we do feel this was an important part of the course success. Among the emerging theories of behavior change, community-based social marketing and the strong impact of social norms have been shown to be effective measures for stimulating behavior change [47]; [48]. We also acknowledge that creating a culture for a course is not easy, but there are effective teaching strategies that can help influence class culture, and we outline some of these here. 1. Encouraging group discussions with different students: We did a lot of group work in class, and with 80–120 students per class, we took special efforts to mix students for their group work. This helped students work with new students and be exposed to new ideas. By giving students some challenging subjects to discuss (i.e., how does climate change affect their cur- rent or future lives), or challenging situations (i.e., during a UN simulation on climate change where students represented different countries negotiating a climate treaty), we gave students the opportunity to exchange personal ideas about climate. We felt this helped students see multiple views across the class, and if an emerging interest and dedication to climate change arose through the class, it could spread. 2. Faculty committed to climate action: The faculty who taught this course were all deeply

committed to climate change solutions, and they were encouraged to share their own per- sonal and professional journeys towards reducing carbon emissions. And because students got to know the faculty fairly well, given the course was taught over an academic year, stu- dents had the opportunity to connect with the faculty at a personal level. For example, when faculty reflected on their own personal challenges in reducing emissions associated with driving or eating, students could relate to this. Role models are important in creating social change, and we suggest that having professors committed to environmental solutions was also a factor in creating a social culture for the class that encouraged pro-environmental thinking and behavior. For example, one of the focus group participants mentioned that as a result of the class culture, her ownership of an SUV grew uncomfortable given her shifting The role of climate change education on individual lifetime carbon emissions PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0206266 February 4, 2020 14 / 23