ACTIVE LEARNING EFFECT ON THE PUBLIC’S PERCEPTION OF ANTHROPOGENIC GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE

Human-induced, or anthropogenic global climate change has been debated for many years among the public despite the growing evidence that there is scientific consensus on this topic. A gap has been discovered between scientific evidence of increasing temperatures and the public’s perception on climate change. This gap has been hypothesized to come from the method in which the scientific community represents scientific evidence. The goal of this study is to determine if active learning techniques around local and regional climate change and climate change impacts changes the awareness, perception, and behavioral intentions of different segments of the public. The study uses a quantitative component involving online active learning bounded by pre- and post-surveys. An interface to various online resources about climate change was created and gives the public an opportunity to explore historical and modeled future data with computer-based activities. A pre-survey is being given to all participants, which include questions on their initial awareness, perceptions, and behavioral intentions regarding global climate change. Individuals are then asked to view videos on the mechanism of global climate change, historical climate trends, the validity of future climate models and view how water resources in the region will be impacted. This will culminate with access to data revealing how local and regional animal species may be impacted by global climate change, generated by a species distribution model called Lifemapper. After individuals explore the data from the species distribution model they are prompted to fill out a post-survey, which reveals how these activities have changed their perception on anthropogenic climate change. The presentation will discuss preliminary results from the survey including, results from a statistical T test to determine if post-activity responses differ significantly from pre-activity responses.