Call To Climate Action: Leveraging Living Collections To Inspire Pro-environmental Behavior In Virtual Informal Science Education Programs

With high visitation rates, Informal Science Learning Centers (ISLCs) have the opportunity to use their broad reach and trusted relationship with the community to initiate critical conversations around urgent global challenges, like climate change. This is especially true for engaging adolescent audiences, like high school students, that are acutely aware of the threat of climate change and the lifelong impact it could have on their physical and mental health (Sanson, Van Hoorn, & Burke, 2019). While the complex and inherently negative nature of the problem can make climate change communication difficult, research suggests the use of living collections, like live animals and plants, can improve learning, foster empathy, and encourage pro-environmental behavior (Fuhrman & Rubenstein, 2017). This paper investigates whether using living collections in a virtual Climate High School Science Series program will increase the likelihood of high school students taking pro-environmental action. The curriculum for this program was designed to incorporate the Head, Heart, Hands Model for Transformative Learning and aimed to move students from cognitive and affective engagement to behavioral engagement around the climate crisis. The learnings from this research and curriculum are meant to inform future climate change programs and exhibits to inspire pro-environmental behavior in participants and visitors