Climate Change Communication Investigation

The Yale Climate Opinion Maps help us compare Americans’ beliefs around climate change across different parts of the country. For this project, students will get to be researchers collecting data in their own communities, just like the researchers at YPCCC.

Background

The Yale Climate Opinion Maps (YCOM) allow users to visualize and explore differences in public opinion about global warming in the United States in unprecedented geographic detail. The Yale Program on Climate Change Communication regularly updates YCOM using national survey data in order to accurately reflect current public opinion. The interactive and up-to-date nature of this tool makes it a perfect model for students to manipulate in order to explore beliefs around climate change both locally and nationally. To find out more about how this activity will help your students be climate change communication scientists, see the Educator Page.

Goals and Standards:

  1. Conduct authentic research about local public climate change perceptions.
  2. Draw conclusions about local public climate change opinions based on data.
  3. Consider sources of experimental error and limitations of data analysis when analyzing and interpreting data.