Climate change

Climate Change

and Children

Current Issues in Developmental

Psychology (CID)

Recap LOs

• What do children/young people (CYP) know/understand about CC

• What do children/young people (CYP) think/feel about CC

• What can developmental theory and research inform about above

• Can the knowledge from that explain what we see; can they effect change

(behaviour and action)

Online Intro outlines broad ‘psychology of CC’. Today focus on CYP

Children and Young People’s

CC Knowledge and Beliefs

How much do you know/think

about CC?

On a scale 1-10:

• Do you believe it is/has been happening?

• Do you know/understand the reasons (science) behind it

– especially human causes (CC is ‘anthropogenic’)?

• Do you care about it/Are you concerned?

Are your answers related to your age/education/interest, where

you are, etc.

Before ‘What do CYP know/understand…’

NOTE

current position –

based on peer-reviewed

research and reports by

the esteemed scientific

community, repeatedly:

Intergovernmental Panel

on Climate Change

(IPCC, 2001, 2007,

2014, 2021, 2022,

2023):

Increasing extent and impact of anthropogenic CC

at planetary scale

From direct environmental tests, satellite imaging,

computational modelling with clarity and precision

(difficult to decipher for lay people)

CC impacting most severely ‘indigenous’ people and

‘majority world’ countries (global South/non-WEIRD)

What do CYP know/think/feel about CC

EXAMPLES of reviews and research

Ojala (e.g., 2014, 2015, 2022-Talis): CC passivity/scepticism or ‘hope’ to

• Fairly widespread scepticism in adults (see online intro), reflected in some CYP not

taking issues seriously: actual disbelief vs. passive response (due to self-efficacy);

Values/political orientation (trust in institutions, tolerance), norms (socialising

agents-parents’ scepticism; Bandura’s SLT re role model) predict CYP’s scepticism

• Constructive hope (=> engagement) vs. denial-based hope (less pro-environment):

can contribute to solutions vs. denying problem/de-emphasising personal risks

• To explore younger, CC ‘worry/coping’-mental wellbeing, engagement (see later)

Tasquier, Levrini and Dillon (2015): knowledge models

• CC – complex topic with conceptual difficulties and emotional barriers, with also

‘epistemological’ challenges: nature/origin/limits unlike other sciences (see part 2

theory/research); relevant to also explore CYP’s reactions

What do CYP know/understand about CC –

how/ where do they learn…

Another EXAMPLE (review)

Rousell and Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles (2020): Lit. 1993-2014 on CC education (incl. non-

school settings; e.g., parks, zoos, museums)

• Geographic disparity: populated regions have ‘some form of CC education research’ but

overrepresented in some (map next page)

• Different focuses by region: curricular coverage in WEIRD and Africa with some ‘social

activity’; Pacific Islands community education with adaptation and mitigation (of risks/to

disasters); Asian and South America sparse

• Large-scale studies: little/no relationships between scientific knowledge and pro-

environmental behaviour; cooperative, interdisciplinary, participatory, contextual and

experiential learning – impacts attitudes and actions (via personal connections)

• Mass media: strongly affects attitudes but rarely leads to behavioural changes –

lacking knowledge of what actions to take

Distribution and density of CC research (with CYP) across

the world (Rousell & Cutter-Mackenzie–Knowles, 2020)

What do CYP know/understand about CC –

how/ what do they learn…

A further EXAMPLE of reviews and research

Morote and Hernández (2022): What do schoolchildren know about CC?

• Education and media important influences for learning and mitigating CC effects:

requirement in Spain but ‘fake news’ or stereotypes (TV, Internet, social networks)

• Study explored age changes (primary, secondary, further; age 10-18) in knowledge (causes

and consequences – focus on greenhouse gases), through survey

• Top3 info sources: primary-TV >school >Internet; secondary-TV >Internet >social; further-

social >TV >Internet; causes, top: pollution/‘human’ factors (age increase); ‘don’t

know/mistakes’ (decrease); consequences, top: temperature rising, ‘melting’ (age

increase); main greenhouse gas, top: CO2 (incorrect, mostly among further)

…relevance of digital medias as knowledge sources (comparable to trainee teachers) …may

lead to lower levels of generic transversal competences

Channels of information for CC: schoolchildren

in Spain, N=575 (Morote & Hernández, 2022)

from wiki

What do CYP know/understand about CC –

Non-WEIRD/ Global South

Reviewed by Morote and Hernández (2022): similar trends, e.g.:

• Brazil (Da Silva & Boveloni, 2009): greenhouse effect seen as essentially harmful

• Asia (Singapore and Taiwan-Chang & Pascua, 2016; China-Wu & Otsuka, 2021): CC solely

due to anthropogenic causes as ’good/bad’ processes; linked to earthquakes/tsunamis (x)

with biased comprehension; better when context-specific (e.g., flooding-Zhong et al., 2021)

to explore pathways, risk management and mitigation

…role of digital medias and reliance on school textbooks with a predominance of catastrophic

messages and out-of-context images – need ‘simple’ but ‘rigorous’ to promote critical thought

CC – DP Theory and Research