the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 19 Jan 2024
Climate READY: A three-semester youth empowerment program
Abstract. The Climate Resilience Education and Action for Dedicate Youth (Climate READY) program, developed by the Florida Atlantic University Pine Jog Environmental Education Center (FAU Pine Jog) and funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Environmental Literacy Program, built climate literacy and community resilience through a three-semester dual enrollment program (NOAA-SEC-OED-2020-2006190). Most student participants (~80 %) were from Title-1, high schools in low socio-economic communities vulnerable to extreme weather and environmental hazards in Palm Beach County, Florida. The main objectives were to
- increase knowledge of South Florida’s changing climate systems,
- teach and promote environmentally responsible behavior that results in the stewardship of healthy ecosystems and a reduction in carbon consumption to mitigate future environmental risks, and
- empower students to act as agents of change within the community by teaching community members about local climate impacts and resilience strategies for extreme weather events.
Students in the Climate READY Ambassador Institute (Summer Semester 1) built climate knowledge, explored NOAA technology, engaged with scientists and resilience experts, developed communication and advocacy skills, and learned about local resilience solutions. An Afterschool Mentorship (Fall Semester 2) component paired new Climate READY Ambassadors with fourth- and fifth- grade afterschool students to build community resilience awareness through the creation of storybooks. Lastly, Community Outreach (Spring Semester 3) provided ways to share local resilience strategies at public events and promoted civic engagement in climate solutions. Data were collected from students in the form of pre- and post-assessment questionnaires during the 2022–2023 academic year. Summative statistics were analyzed for climate science knowledge, self-identity, self-efficacy, and sense of place. Students felt more prepared, confident, and able to communicate within their communities about climate change and many demonstrated a significantly better understanding of climate science concepts.
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RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-139', Eleanor Burke, 13 Feb 2024
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Climate READY: A three-semester youth empowerment program
General Comments
This article describes a 3-semester credit-bearing program called “Climate READY” at Florida Atlantic University’s satellite campus, Pine Jog Environmental Education Center (FAU Pine Jog). It is well organized and well written, with clearly stated project objectives and a testable and measurable hypothesis that the program would “increase the environmental literacy of 4–12 grade students in Palm Beach County, FL and the general community that they live in so that they can become more resilient to extreme weather and/or other environmental hazards, thus empowering them to become involved in achieving that resilience.”
The article describes the program in depth: the methods section is written with thorough detail; the results section provides a great deal of data from pre- and post-testing of both the high school students in the dual-enrollment (high school/college credits) cohort, and of their younger 4th-5th grade mentees in an after-school program on the FAU Pine Jog campus. Ample and clear data tables register both groups’ learning of basic facts about climate-change, as well as their attitudes and sense of perceived personal agency around climate change readiness in their communities. Data show how community outreach service presentations by the Ambassadors changed their sense of community connection and personal agency. The data and statistical analyses support the discussion and conclusions the authors draw from it.
The project and this article fall nicely within the mission and scope of GC, i.e. providing “outreach, public engagement, widening participation, knowledge exchange, and…any initiative which seeks to communicate an aspect of geoscience to a wider audience than the experts within that particular field.” The project itself focused on exactly these goals, and this article is written for accessibility to a diverse audience, which might include primary and secondary school teachers and districts, college and dual-enrollment environmental program planners, local groups and governing boards who consider climate change readiness at the community level, local/regional environmentalist groups, parents and home-schooling families, school-community partnerships, and others.
Some new or lesser-known concepts and tools featured in the narrative include the following:
- An after-school/college partnership with a three-pronged programmatic approach to teaching climate literacy and climate-change readiness: (1) a dual-enrollment college course for high school students, (2) a cross-age peer teaching/learning experience, and (3) a community outreach service program, all based in the 3-semester college course using original course curriculum designed by the authors.
- Ample data points from pre- and post- testing (of both age-groups) using questions designed by the authors, many of which are based on high school and college earth science textbooks, and on the Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network’s Climate Literacy Quiz.
- Use of the NOAA-created earth-science technology tool, SOS–Science on a Sphere, to teach both age groups, including for the cross-age peer teaching.
- Measured evaluation of the “train the trainer” technique, with high schoolers as the mentors for younger students and also as presenters for community groups, events, and boards.
All of these features merit the documentation by this article. It was a pleasure to read. EB
Specific Comments
Title Concise and to the point. I had some confusion over which age-group of “youth” was your focus for “empowerment”, then realized it was both. You might want to clarify early in the intro.
Abstract
-Throughout the article there are frequent shifts back and forth from grades 4-5 mentees to CR ambassadors (e.g. L242 “students that participated in the program”--mentees? Ambassadors too?), which confuses the reader when both groups are sometimes referred to as students. Can you find a shorthand way to distinguish between age groups when speaking about “students?” The use of “Ambassadors” works for older ones; you need a term for their mentees.
Intro
-L43-50–Without some kind of professional development, teachers are unsure how to approach these topics. Yes, as Lambert found in 2012, teacher-preparation issue was a major factor then, but it’s now 12 years later, and teachers need to be given credit for the significant professional development most have taken since then. Let’s move away from blaming teacher-prep. Can you acknowledge Florida’s unfriendly soil for climate science education standards, especially in light of the state’s Stop-W.O.K.E. act, and the teachers’ legitimate fear of losing their jobs if they teach topics or use vocabulary some parent or community member might object to? How to work around this conundrum?
–Also might mention - where FL lines up with other states’ standards about Climate Change,e.g. https://ncse.ngo/making-grade-how-state-public-school-standards-address-climate-change , which studied all 50 states’ science standards w/ respect to climate change info/education. I understand that these may be touchy areas, but we have free academic speech in this country, and it is so important to exercise it–especially in universities!
-L70 A few places of ameri-centrism to fix, e.g. next environmental "ground zero"--specify “in US” or region; check throughout for USA-centric references and try to relate them in global terms
-Consider a side-note or endnote near the Abstract, explaining (for non-American readers) terms like Title 1, free & reduced lunch, dual enrollment (line 200 is too late). Also ages of students in grades 9-12 and 4-5, early in the Intro.
Methods
–L150– First paragraph is confusing. Maybe bullet list the 3 components. Tighten it up.
–So sad that Covid interrupted the first year of a beautifully planned program. You made lemonade from the lemons.
–L175-200 It’s a little confusing about how (and why) the Galaxy E3 students were part of the high school students’ learning about CC with SOS, and whether these overlap with the after-school program students who were mentored by the high schoolers. After several reads it gets clearer, but few folks will read 3 times. Please tighten this up.
Results
All quite clear except -L335 one misstatement– “fewer” should say more, if I’m reading correctly. Table 7 bears this out. After their experience, …significantly fewer students reported that they do not question [ADD: the science of] climate change (Table 7) The sort-of double negative implied by the question makes it pretty confusing.
–L327 Most students (96%) were between 15 and 16 years of age and female (72%), 55% of the students described themselves as White, 36% as Hispanic or Latino, and 18% as Black.
Did this reflect local populations? Seems it might be skewed white? Given that “Students from underserved communities were prioritized in the recruitment process” (L200), was this disappointing? Maybe treat this question in the Discussion section? Is this the impetus for your recommendation to do multiple in-person recruitment sessions?
Discussion section
–The fourth feature discussed in general comments above, training high schoolers as “ambassadors” to do dispersed outreach to elder and younger counterparts in their communities, might gain more credence from skeptics if supported with some research citations about the efficacy of cross-age peer teaching and of community service-learning.
[Some places to start might include:
- Promoting Positive Youth Development Through Teenagers-as-Teachers Programs, Steven M. Worker, Iaccopucci, Bird, and Horowitz, Jl Adolescent research (2018) https://doi.org/10.1177/0743558418764089
- Filges T, Dietrichson J, Viinholt BCA, Dalgaard NT. Service learning for improving academic success in students in grade K to 12: A systematic review. Campbell Syst Rev. 2022 Jan 7;18(1):e1210. doi: 10.1002/cl2.1210. PMID: 36913211; PMCID: PMC8741202.]
–You might make a little space for connecting this project to the wider world of similar collaborations between high schoolers (as mentors, teachers), and younger students? And for highlighting how you see your project developing and perhaps disseminating, being replicated in other districts and regions.
--And where your students’ pre/post beliefs line up with USA (and wider world?) (see EdWeek Research Center survey, October 2022 https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/teens-know-climate-change-is-real-they-want-schools-to-teach-more-about-it/2022/11
–And more clearly state your own novel contribution to the literature on Climate Change Readiness education, (such as the curriculum you developed, and train-the- trainer/peer teaching approach.)
Conclusions section
–Could use a statement about future programmatic or research steps, if any are planned. Suggestion for further research by FAU and others, would be whether school-college partnerships and cross-age peer teaching could serve to scale up community/regional climate readiness quickly.
–As an aside, I presume you got parental permission for public presentations for the ambassadors under the age of majority? Could be important, especially if there is a community member present with a political ax to grind. This happened to our high school students while presenting at a town meeting. We (staff) stepped in to stop the speaker from becoming abusive, and the high school students were unfazed, but parental permission was a safety-net throughout our students’ public presentations road-show. You might do well to include it as a recommendation for other school-college partnerships tracing your footsteps, which I hope they will do.
Technical corrections
L 6–spell check for dropped “d” on “Dedicate” Youth–might be in a couple of places
L 21 Data were collected from students—specify both age groups
L.34. minimal level of environmental literacy that is, the possession of... awk. punctuation
L 54 grades 4-12 (youth ages 9 to 18) specify 2 groups, 9-10 and 14-18?
L 174 heading is about High School ambassador program, but next para goes into SOS curriculum developed in collaboration with E3 Galaxy elem. School–confusing at first
–Paragraphs at L175 and L199–might it help to switch their order, to give a better picture of the Ambassador program before delving into the SOS curriculum and Galaxy school collaboration they followed?
Table 18–your students’ results may have been affected by the wording of the question. Since current sea level rise is not specified in the question, other answers could be marked as correct, since future rise may well occur with ice sheet melting, etc.
-L490 table 23, why are there check marks on “Shorter days & fewer hurricanes”? These would not be considered correct answers, thus should not be checked, right?
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-139-RC1 -
CC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-139', Jan Cincera, 05 Apr 2024
reply
The paper describes an exciting youth CCE program. I appreciate that the program is clearly described with a lot of details, and I also appreciate the overall quality of the program.
At the same time, I suggest improving the paper to enhance its quality as a scientific paper. Providing a more detailed background would situate the Climate READY program within the broader context of environmental education and youth empowerment initiatives. This could include reviewing similar programs, their outcomes, and how Climate READY fills existing gaps.
Secondly, the paper needs to be adequately related to other existing literature. Strengthening the literature review by discussing theoretical frameworks would enhance its overall quality.
Furthermore, a more detailed explanation of the data collection and analysis methodologies would be helpful. When an adapted instrument is applied (CNS), its source should be cited appropriately.
The presentation of the findings could benefit from more clarity. Consider moving some of the unnecessary tables to the Appendix and present just the most important (significant) findings. Regarding the low number of respondents, I suggest being careful in its interpretation. Qualitative data (Table 19) should be categorized. Consider moving the table to the Appendix and presenting just the most critical findings in the text.
Generally, you should not present new findings in the Discussion section (e.g., Fig. 6 should be presented in Findings). Instead, consider concisely synthesizing the main findings and relating them to the relevant literature or similar CCE programs in the Introduction. In addition, you can provide concrete suggestions for educators, policymakers, and community organizers based on the findings and discuss how the program's strategies can be adapted to different contexts or scaled to reach broader audiences.
Although I suggest many changes, I want to highlight the quality of the presented program and the need for its presentation to the public.Good luck with your paper!
Jan
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-139-CC1
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