Climate Change for the Non-Believers

Teaching green can be hard in a red state. When it comes to climate change, you may run into students or parents who cry “fake news!”

Even as 97 percent of climate scientists agree climate change is happening, and it’s extremely likely due to human activity, many Americans disagree. Often their answer aligns with their political affiliation—only about 30 percent of U.S. Republicans say climate change is mostly caused by humans, according to the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.

For them, it’s likely not about the evidence. It’s about their identity, says Emily Schoerning, director of community organizing and research at the National Center for Science Education (NCSE).

Research shows that increasingly a person’s politics—whether conservative or liberal—influence their view of scientific results, and this is especially true for climate change. A student who says, “I don’t believe in climate change,” may be saying, “I am not the kind of person who believes in climate change.”  

“These issues can be a way for communities to describe themselves, to create borders between insiders and outsiders,” says Schoerning. “I know it may sound silly, but the positives that a person gets from community cohesion can be more appealing than fact-based science. You don’t want to be that person who nobody eats from your hot dish at the church potluck!”

In extremely partisan communities, where almost everybody is a Republican, almost everybody says humans aren’t causing climate change. This includes counties in West Virginia, Utah, Wyoming, Texas, Kansas, Kentucky, and other states. In Idaho earlier this year, Republican state lawmakers attempted to strip climate change from the state’s K–12 science standards.

These may be wonderful, welcoming places to live, Schoerning points out, but they also may be hard places to teach climate change. And yet, this is an important subject with enormous economic and humanitarian impact for generations to come.

So, how are you going to teach it?

#1: Stop the debate.

As Ann Reid, director of NCSE, says, “Nobody is debating potassium.” Nobody is debating gravity, either. There aren’t two sides to facts.

Last year, hoping to provoke teachers into leading climate-change debates in their classrooms, the libertarian Heartland Institute mailed more than a quarter-million booklets, titled “Why Scientists Disagree about Global Warming,” to educators. It was a shoddy product that cited anti-science blogs and Heartland’s own website.

Entertaining a student debate on the issue is not the way to satisfy or sway naysayers, not if we understand their positions to be part of their identities. Instead, any debate likely would “emphasize the divide and further entrench people,” and also propel students to unreliable sources, suggests Schoerning.

#2: Data is not always the answer.

Faced with a denier, many science teachers turn to data. Just look at these atmospheric CO2 numbers! But this is not an effective strategy for identity issues.

“This issue is not like a misconception about photosynthesis,” says Schoerning. “You need to move people to a place where their community feels safe and their identity isn’t threatened, and then they’re actually interested in learning more,” she says.

Local data that students collect themselves is an exception. Former state teacher of the year Jamie Esler, a science teacher in northern Idaho, has his students measure the emissions from their daily home-to-school commute, or the environmental impact of their meals. Once they get hooked on the numbers, it’s easier to pivot to peer-reviewed science.

#3: Take a local approach.

In her workshops, Schoerning encourages educators to focus on resiliency in their communities. For a farming community that might mean asking students “to imagine a scenario where it’s 10 degrees hotter and tomatoes won’t pollinate. What could we grow instead?” In Idaho, it means talking about snowpack and snowboards, or high-elevation streams and cold-water trout, says Esler. “I’m pretty tuned into the interests of Idaho teenagers, but I would change the message for a different audience,” he says.

#4: Make it fun.

Esler takes students into a Idaho pine forest to measure trees and estimate how many are needed to offset the CO2 burned on their rides to school. “I could teach that lesson with a PowerPoint, but what would stick?” he says. “What sticks is the smell of the tree core.... There is boatloads of pedagogy out there that shows that experiential, hands-on teaching works.”

#5: Get some help.

There are excellent online resources for educators. Schoenberg recommends climate.NASA.gov, from an agency that most Americans love and trust. NCSE also has resources at ncse.com/climate, and many educators depend on NOAA.gov/climate. NEA has also compiled resources here. For more, go to nea.org/climatechange.

Most of all, be compassionate toward your students and parents, says Schoerning. “When people realize we’re not here to judge them, there is a huge demand for climate change education,” she says.