Global climate change is widely accepted by the scientific community as a documented phenomenon and a matter of urgent concern, action, and study. Evidence for, and mechanisms of, climate change are commonly taught in biology and ecology courses, and discussed in the public media across the country and worldwide. One underlying objective of teaching about this topic, to non-science majors in particular, is to help establish a citizenry that is both knowledgeable of the science and the policies needed to help slow the effects of climate change.

We are interested in asking: How successfully is this topic taught? Is a person’s “belief” in or perception of climate change linked with their understanding of the mechanisms driving climate change? Plus, are these linkages related to a person’s demographics, specifically their major of study and region? To answer these questions, undergraduate students enrolled in General Ecology courses during the fall of 2008 at Unity College in Maine, Michigan Technological University, and University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point, voluntarily agreed to complete a survey about their beliefs and understanding of climate change.  Students also concurrently completed a content quiz on knowledge of climate change mechanisms. All of the surveys and quizzes were conducted prior to instruction in this topic. For our analysis, we conducted a one-way ANOVA to determine if student answers to the “belief” survey (4 possible answers) differed by their average score on the quiz. We conducted a contingency analysis to find correlations between student “belief” survey answers among the three schools and declared major.

Results/Conclusions

We found a significant positive correlation between student “belief” in the reality of climate change and quiz scores. We also found some differences between region and student major in both understanding and belief, but these were not significant. Our results suggest that as student understanding of climate change mechanisms increases, so does their belief in climate change as an actual phenomenon. Thus, public and student education on climate change, regardless of career interest, is important to enhance acceptance and understanding of the reality of a changing climate, and foster progress toward dealing with this important issue.