As today’s largest carbon emitter, China has been taking great responsibility in addressing global climate change, although low public concern will prevent the country from achieving its carbon emission targets. With political support and appropriate social context, climate change education in China is likely to be an effective strategy in improving individuals’ perceptions about climate change, and in stimulating their willingness to mitigate climate change.

Ms. HU Sifan and her teacher CHEN Jin of Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG) specifically developed a curriculum to test two popular methods of environmental education: place-based and intergenerational learning. They developed a modified Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) model where attitude was refined from attitudes towards particular environmental issues as uncertainty and concern about climate change, and risk perception of local vulnerability to climate change. Based on the theoretical framework, they introduced a new educational program for climate change that included inviting adolescents (aged 10–13) to communicate with seniors (aged ≥ 60 years) in focus groups to discuss the local climate during the past several decades.

The researchers conducted climate change educational program in 12 township-level primary schools in 12 provinces in China. The program mainly involved a 30-min lecture introducing global climate change and a 30—min communication between adolescents and local seniors on local climate change in focus groups. The adolescents gave a 5-min verbal group report after the interaction. The survey included questions related to the modified model of the TPB, measuring a range of perceptions associated with climate change, related behavioral intentions, and key demographic variables.

They found that descriptions of trends and extreme climatic events from local seniors were generally consistent with local meteorological data, which supported the hypothesis that climate change could be observed and perceived by individuals in their own lifetimes through local extreme weather events. They also found that the seniors in rural China had noticed detailed climate changes variations, which supported the hypothesis that perceptions about climate change would improve in adolescents who communicated with local seniors. The adolescents’ uncertainty about climate change exhibited significant change after the program. The shift in adolescent concern and perceived behavioral control translated into greater willingness to support climate change mitigation.

The study showed that place-based strategies for climate change education had considerable potential to render the abstract concrete for helping adolescents understand global issues. It provided an effective communication strategy for climate change education by inviting adolescents to communicate with seniors in focus groups on local climate.

The study entitled “Place-based inter-generational communication on local climate improves adolescents’ perceptions and willingness to mitigate climate change” has been published online in Climatic Change.  

1). A 30-min lecture introducing global climate change; 2). A 30—min communication between adolescents and local seniors on local climate change; 3). A 5-min verbal group report after the interaction. (Images by HU Sifan)