Communicating Climate Change: What Can We Learn from Informal Educators?

Public and higher education traditionally exist in separate spheres. And for good reason – there are different assumptions of prior knowledge, and different goals for informal educators vs. academic researchers. However, when it comes to highly-polarized, unfortunately politicized topics like climate change, the typical response of leaning into the “expert researcher” role only exacerbates the divide between public opinion and the ivory tower. Meanwhile, informal learning centers like zoos, aquariums, and museums have worked more productively towards disseminating climate change knowledge without disturbing societal tensions associated with the topic. So how do they do it? And why aren’t we taking notes