Teisl, Ph.D. students write BDN article on teaching youth about climate change – B. Grigholm & A. Kireta
The Bangor Daily News published the article, “What Maine youth are learning in school about climate change,” which was written by Mario Teisl, an economics professor at the University of Maine, and Ph.D. candidates Bjorn Grigholm and Amy Kireta. Grigholm is a student in UMaine’s School of Earth and Climate Sciences and Kireta is a student in the Ecology and Environmental Sciences program. To determine how youth are being educated about climate change, the researchers developed and administered an email survey to all 2,399 middle and high school teachers in Maine, of which 369 responded, according to the article. When asked how often they teach about climate change, 63 percent said occasionally, 20 percent said frequently, and 18 percent said not at all. When these teachers were asked why they taught about climate change, 68 percent stated they saw it as an important topic, the article states. The researchers had assistance from an undergraduate, Chelsea Ogun, and master’s student, Elyse Doyle, in the School of Economics. The project was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation Adaptation to Abrupt Climate Change IGERT program and UMaine’s Center for Undergraduate Research.