The role of climate change education on individual lifetime carbon emissions

Finally, when developing this course more than 10 years ago, we were focused on creating a contemporary and action-based learning experience. Only later did we realize that this learn- ing environment was creating unique outcomes, worthy of further study. Although it would have been preferable to have also collected data before and during the course experience, the type of longitudinal analyses presented here is rare in environmental education, and our meth- odology, although subject to some limitations, provides a unique opportunity to investigate the long-term role of education on personal behavior. 4. Results As described in Sections 2.2 and 2.3, we use surveys and focus groups to study the attitudes and behaviors of graduates of COMM 168 after more than five years following the course com- pletion. These results are analyzed in the below sections. 4.1. Survey The first part of the survey focused on participants’ attitudes and beliefs about global warming. A large majority of participants (83%) agreed with the statement, “Most scientists think global warming is happening.”, and most participants (84%) also felt that global warming would affect their lives “a great deal” or “a moderate amount.” This is notable since the general public often discounts the impacts that global warming will have on them personally [42]; [43]. Most partici- pants (84%) also strongly agreed or agreed with the statement, “I have personally experienced the effects of global warming.”, and when asked about how global warming will affect future genera-

tions, 91% said “a great deal.” Because these results are quite different from the average U.S. gen- eral public (e.g., [44]), this suggests that the course may have had an influence on students’ long- term beliefs about climate change. Even so, we cannot rule out the possibility that a socially- agreeable bias may be present in participant responses, as described further in the Section 7. The second group of questions asked about personal actions to reduce climate change and whether the COMM 168 course had any effect on those actions. The general areas of climate action included waste reduction, home energy conservation, transportation and food choices. Each question asked participants to reflect on how participation in COMM 168 may have affected their actions today in those areas. A summary of the results for the different categories is provided in Fig 2. In the waste and home energy conservation categories, a large percentage of participants described engaging in some actions to reduce waste or reduce energy use in their home that they attribute to taking the COMM 168 course. This included recycling more often (95%), changing to more energy efficient light bulbs (86%), giving away or donating products so they can be reused (75%), buy- ing products that have less packaging (64%), and purchasing energy-efficient appliances (59%). Fewer participants reported actions such as composting food scraps (48%), purchasing renewable energy from their utility (18%) and installing solar panels (4%).

In the transportation category, about 25% of participants reported some behavior to reduce emissions that is attributed to the COMM 168 course. This included using public transporta- tion more (35%), using a bicycle for transportation (26%) and carpooling regularly (22%). And in the food choices category, most participants (80%) reported that at least occasionally they made food choices based on reducing carbon emissions. The survey responses reported here suggest that participant behavior was influenced by the COMM 168 course in ways that continue to impact daily life. The types of actions studied here can be divided into two groups: one-time actions and recurring actions. For example, the pur- chase of an energy-efficient light bulb or automobile is a one-time action, and these decisions will shape energy use for years into the future. In contrast, recurring actions such as recycling The role of climate change education on individual lifetime carbon emissions PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0206266 February 4, 2020 7 / 23