Promoting climate change outreach in an undergraduate atmospheric sciences program

Mitigation of anthropogenic climate change is essential to lessen the extent of negative impacts. The urgency of the situation, however, has not been effectively communicated by experts, resulting in a sense of apathy among the general public. For meaningful climate change action to be realized, the scientific community must encourage, and provide support for, experts who engage with non-experts. As a community, geoscientists can improve climate change literacy thus instilling a sense of urgency among the public in two key ways: First, we must increase the number of geoscientists who are knowledgeable about climate change. Second, we must encourage these "experts" to engage with "non-experts" and provide them with adequate resources to do so. Such efforts are currently being implemented in the undergraduate atmospheric sciences program (ATM) at Northern Vermont University-Lyndon, and the results thus far are promising. To increase knowledge, all ATM students regardless of career pathway are required to take courses that cover the science of human-caused climate change. They are then encouraged to communicate their knowledge to the public. Students are creating informational content for a department-run website and are regularly given opportunities to engage with the public at local schools and events. These efforts have helped to align student understanding of climate change with the current scientific consensus. In addition, an increasing number of students are selecting internships and career paths with connections to climate change. Perhaps most importantly, these students are graduating with a heightened sense of responsibility to engage in outreach activities.