What effective design strategies do rural, underserved students in STEM clubs value while learning about climate change?

Abstract

This study investigated the experiences of rural, underserved middle school students in afterschool clubs. Culturally relevant climate change education strategies were used to enhance students’ climate change literacy. We investigated changes in students’ climate change literacy, perceptions of strategies used, and what they valued about the clubs by analyzing a pre-post survey (N = 97) and structured written reflections (N = 113). A new integrative framework brought together climate change education design elements to promote culturally relevant programming in an afterschool setting. The effective climate change education strategies and Expectancy-Value Theory (EVT) guided data analyses. Overall, students demonstrated significant growth in climate literacy; beliefs, attitudes, and subjective knowledge did not increase significantly. Students’ reflections indicated some climate change strategies resonated more than others. Analyses using EVT found that students’ interest/enjoyment and identity were most often described, followed by self-efficacy and expectations for success with club tasks. Implications for practice are shared.

Keywords:

• Climate change education
• culturally relevant pedagogy
• expectancy-value theory
• extracurricular
• middle school
• STEM clubs

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the STEM Career Club teachers and students for their participation and the STEM Career Club university team members at North Carolina State University from The Science House and the College of Education.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Table 5. Operationalized definitions and exemplar quotes of effective climate change education strategies (Monroe et al. 2019) integrated into STEM club meetings.

Additional information

Funding

Research reported in this publication was funded by NSF-ITEST Grant Award Number 1433747.