Seeing climate change: psychological distance and connection to nature

Abstract

To develop targeted climate change curricula, it is imperative to understand how students perceive and observe the localized effects of climate change. Our work used a quantitatively driven, parallel mixed methods research design to study potential factors that contribute to undergraduate biology students seeing the local effects of climate change. Our research questions asked students to provide examples of climate change occurring in their state and examined the predictive power of connection to nature, psychological distance, and other factors on whether students see climate change or not. Our quantitative data show a student’s connection to nature, their spatial climate awareness, and their geographic location were the three most important factors in predicting a student seeing and discussing climate change occurring in their state. Further, our qualitative data support our quantitative findings indicating that personal experiences in nature are integral for students connecting with nature and seeing climate change at scales smaller than their state.

Supplemental data for this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2022.2042205.

Keywords:

• Climate change
• connection to nature
• psychological distance
• education
• university students

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the Graduate Student Association of the University of Northern Colorado as our partial funding source. We thank our participants for their time and sharing their perspectives, Alex Colpitts for helping us transcribe our interviews, and Cameron Duke for reviewing early drafts.

Conflict of interest notification

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Data availability statement

To protect the privacy and confidentiality of the human research subjects used in this study (i.e. faculty and students), and in accordance with University of Northern Colorado IRB regulations, data can be obtained by contacting the first author at [email protected]. Upon written request, we can release data as de-identified and in aggregate form (i.e. by section, as we used in our analyses). For more information about this restriction, please contact Nicole Morse, UNC IRB Research Compliance Manager ([email protected]).

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by funding from the University of Northern Colorado Graduate Student Association.

Notes on contributors

Jessica R. Duke

Jessica R. Duke, B.Sc., M.S. is a Ph.D. student in the Biological Education program in the School of Biological Sciences, University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, Colorado. She teaches upper-division biology labs. Her research focus is on climate change education.

Emily A. Holt

Emily A. Holt, Ph.D. is an associate professor in the School of Biological Sciences, University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, Colorado. She teache s plant systematics and pedagogy courses to undergraduates and graduate students. She conducts ecological research on lichens and education research on climate literacy.