Current Projects
Building the Acceptance of Climate Change Instrument
Our central objective is to develop a novel instrument, the Acceptance of Climate Change Scale (ACC). The ACC will be a field-tested instrument that examines undergraduate science (biology, chemistry, and geoscience) students' acceptance of climate change. The ACC scale will enable science university faculty incorporating climate change in their course(s) to quantify students’ acceptance of climate change and understand definitional elements of the construct of acceptance.
NSF Funded: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2313967&HistoricalAwards=false
Part 1: Scoping Review of Articles Measuring Climate Change
Completed Projects
Seeing Climate Change: Psychological Distance and Connection to Nature
Explored factors impacting students’ ability to see the effects of climate change occurring in their home state. I found that a student’s connection to nature, their ability to see climate change across multiple spatial scales (e.g., psychological distance), and their geographic location are the three most important factors in predicting a student’s ability to see and discuss climate change within their state. Further, qualitative data from this study indicate that personal experiences in nature are integral for students connecting with nature and seeing climate change at scales smaller than their state.
Localizing Climate Change: A Classroom Activity
I have built a climate change intervention designed to lower students’ psychological distance associated with climate change across multiple scales (spatial and social). With this research, I hope to provide instructors with valuable information on factors that shape student perceptions of local climate change that can be used to create more effective climate change curricula. I also hope that my climate change classroom intervention can be used by other instructors and institutions to further promote effective climate literacy for undergraduate students.
Connection to Nature: A student perspective
Many studies have quantitatively measured the connection to nature construct and linked it with other variables (e.g., willingness to act, environmental awareness), but few other studies have qualitatively assessed students’ views of their connection to nature. My study examined how students describe other people who are very connected to nature and those who are disconnected from nature. We determined how accurately students predict their own connection to nature, which was also an independent validation of a published instrument, while also examining what factors contributed to discrepancies in their predictions.
We found that identity and behavior were mentioned most frequently by students when describing factors contributing to both their own and others' connection to nature. Further, most students accurately predicted their own connection to nature. Our study provides a novel analysis of students’ perceptions of connection to nature that could inform programs and curricula designed to increase connection to nature in university students.
