How Wisconsin Extension Educators Talk About Climate Change Without Talking About ``Climate Change''

Authors

• Sky Hershberger, University of Wisconsin–Madison Division of ExtensionFollow
• Todd P. Newman, University of Wisconsin–Madison Department of Life Sciences CommunicationFollow

Volume

64

Issue

2

Abstract

Climate change touches all areas of Extension's programming. To understand how educators approach talking about climate change with constituents, we interviewed 15 Extension educators and three program managers in Wisconsin. Crops and Soils educators view climate change as interwoven with their work, Financial Education educators view it as mostly disconnected, and Community Economic Development educators range between these extremes. Educators in all three programs avoid the polarizing phrase ``climate change,'' instead focusing on specific, local, and relatable issues. Educators show empathy and emphasize resilience (adaptation) rather than mitigation. These findings can inform Extension's organizational strategy on climate change.

Authors’ Contribution Statement

SH: conceptualization, methodology, investigation, data curation, formal analysis, writing–original draft, writing–review & editing, project administration. TPN: conceptualization, supervision, methodology, writing–review & editing.

Data Availability

The data are not publicly available due to privacy/ethical restrictions, as they contain information that could compromise the privacy of research participants.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License.

Recommended Citation

Hershberger, S., & Newman, T. (2026). How Wisconsin Extension Educators Talk About Climate Change Without Talking About ``Climate Change''. Journal of Extension, 64(2), Article 9. https://doi.org/10.66752/1077-5315.5862