What Triggers Climate Action : The Impact of a Climate Change Education Program on Students’ Climate Literacy and Their Willingness to Act

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216224%3A14230%2F22%3A00126484" target="_blank" >RIV/00216224:14230/22:00126484 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/16/10365/htm" target="_blank" >https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/16/10365/htm</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su141610365" target="_blank" >10.3390/su141610365</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

What Triggers Climate Action : The Impact of a Climate Change Education Program on Students’ Climate Literacy and Their Willingness to Act

Original language description

There has been an intensive debate in the field of climate change education about what predictors influence youth’s climate-related behavior and what educational strategies and practices stimulate such behavior. This study investigated the impact of the ‘CO2 League’ program which involved 47 schools (N = 123). For the analyses, we used pre-/-post quasi-experimental design which combined quantitative and qualitative methods: an extensive pre-/-post survey for analyzing several components of students’ climate literacy (system/action/effectiveness knowledge, climate change concern, self-efficacy, willingness for climate-protective behavior) and focus group interviews. The analyses revealed a significant impact of sufficient climate change knowledge on climate change concern which subsequently positively influenced participants’ self-efficacy and their willingness to act. The findings of this study suggest that knowledge is a key initial driver for climate action, especially for young people, and confirm the conclusion of previous studies that willingness to adopt pro-climatic behavior presupposes a clear and explicit understanding of climate dynamics and its causal relations. The focus group interviews also revealed that the reported increased willingness to act often translated into actual climate action and that learning about the concept of carbon footprint and the process of calculating and decreasing it proved to be a very accessible and fast path to participants’ engagement in personal climate action.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

50300 - Education

Project

—

Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2022

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Sustainability

ISSN

2071-1050

e-ISSN

2071-1050

Volume of the periodical

14

Issue of the periodical within the volume

16

Country of publishing house

CH - SWITZERLAND

Number of pages

20

Pages from-to

1-20

UT code for WoS article

000845523600001

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85137717030