Does a social action experience around energy conservation promote changes in attitude and understanding of climate change?

Responding effectively to the potential impacts of a changing climate requires individual behavior changes and a scientifically informed populace prepared to address climate-related issues on a community and policy level. This level of behavior change is a non-trivial educational and societal problem; however, behavior change is constrained or supported through a constellation of variables including scientific content knowledge, sociocultural beliefs and values, self-identifications, available infrastructure, economic barriers and opportunities. The goal of this project is to gain a better understanding of student and family participation in energy conservation behaviors, and to analyze how a designed social change experience can support interest and motivation around taking action on climate change.

In this work, we implemented a Green Ninja Energy Design Challenge in middle school and university classrooms during Fall 2014. The Green Ninja is a superhero designed to inspire youth to take action on climate change. The Green Ninja Project provides tools such as humorous films and associated media products that help students take steps towards a more sustainable world. The project we are studying here focuses on engineering design principles and scientific content related to energy and provides an opportunity for students and families to measure and reduce household energy use while learning energy and climate science concepts. Students use an online energy-tracking tool that leverages PG&E Smart Meter technology to record their daily household energy over a period of time. Students are then challenged to use the data and what they’ve learned in class to holistically re-imagine and re-design their living space to reduce energy use, and continue to track their energy usage after implementing their new designs in their living spaces. We will report on attitudes toward, perceptions of and reported behavioral changes of both control and intervention student groups through surveys, focus groups and a number of home visits.