The role of climate change education on individual lifetime carbon emissions

variable, and this describes the understanding and skills around solutions to the issue, together with a sense of personal agency. As described in various later studies (e.g., [10]; [39]; [40], these three factors are important components to successful behavior change educational programs. To illustrate the theoretical connection between the design elements of the course and the expected outcomes, we use a conjecture map in Fig 1 [41] to illustrate what we believe are the most salient connections between the primary conjecture, key elements of the intervention design, the measurable mediating processes and the intervention outcomes. This framework outlines the intermediate processes that support learning, and offers opportunities to measure the effectiveness of these mediating processes towards the intervention outcomes. The course design includes two primary tools that aim to provide students with the key learning experiences that will lead to the intended outcomes. The first tool is a series of activi- ties where students explore connections between their personal and professional lives and cli- mate change. The second tool is the community action project, where student teams design and implement plans to reduce carbon emissions in a community of their choice. Each of these tools, together with other learning experiences in the class, are structured around the three key focus areas of climate science, climate solutions and communication. Examples of the primary tools followed by the mediating processes are provided below.

The COMM 168 course used a series of activities to help students develop a stronger con- nection to climate change and to leverage the predictor factors that have been found to pro- mote behavior change. We provide three examples of learning activities that leveraged each of these predictor factors. In one activity focused on careers, students write a paper, supported by research, about the importance of climate change in their specific discipline. The audience of the paper are peers in their field, and students identify at least three reasons why climate change would be important in their discipline. This career activity is most closely aligned with the ownership variable. In another activity focused on individual action, students use an online Fig 1. Conjecture map illustrating the connection between the course design elements, the mediating processes (e.g., observable interactions) and the intervention outcomes. In the course design column, the item superscripts indicate an alignment with predictor variables (i.e., 1—entry level; 2—ownership; 3— empowerment). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0206266.g001 The role of climate change education on individual lifetime carbon emissions PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0206266 February 4, 2020 5 / 23