Growing Climate Literacy in Urban Green Spaces: An Extension Youth Climate Education Experience

Authors

• Brad Bessler, University of Wisconsin, Madison - Division of ExtensionFollow
• Justin Hougham, University of Wisconsin, Madison - Division of ExtensionFollow

Volume

64

Issue

3

Abstract

Capturing Your Environment (CYE) is an environmental education framework that engages youth in place-based climate exploration. CYE was implemented with youth participating in a Milwaukee summer internship program funded by the Children, Youth, and Families at Risk (CYFAR) Sustainable Community Projects grant. The primary objective of CYE was to create an engaging climate-centered experience for youth. The experience aimed to improve science efficacy, climate content knowledge, science skills, and confidence using scientific tools. A paired t-test compared the learners' pre- and post-experience responses on a 16-item self-report survey. Following participation in CYE, youth reported increases across all measured outcomes.

Authors’ Contribution Statement

Brad Bessler led the development of the CYE curriculum, implemented the educational program, collected and analyzed project data, and led the writing of the manuscript. Dr. R. Justin Hougham served as principal investigator of the funded project, overseeing project administration and implementation. He made significant contributions to the manuscript through substantive review, revision, and editing.

Data Availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author.

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

Bessler, B., & Hougham, J. (2026). Growing Climate Literacy in Urban Green Spaces: An Extension Youth Climate Education Experience. Journal of Extension, 64(3), Article 5. https://doi.org/10.66752/1077-5315.5747