>> My name is Marlies Tumolo and I am a national educational
specialist for NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuary.
I'm also a certified climate interpreter through an
organization of called National Networks for Ocean Climate
Change Interpretation which I will refer to as NOCCI for
short.
So tonight I want to talk to you all a little bit about how
we can frame our conversations on climate so that they can be
most productive and most sticky for our audiences.
I recognize that you bring a variety of experiences and
expertize to the table when it come to climate change
interpretation.
And today I'm hoping that I can give you another tool you can
add to your already I'm very sure large toolbox that will
help you communicate about climate change.
So before we start our presentation,
I do want to give you a little bit of information about the
organization that I work for.
The Office of National Marine Sanctuaries which is part of
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
manages a national marine system of protected areas that
spans more than 170 thousand square miles of ocean and great
lake waters.
To give you an idea, that is a little bit larger than the
state of California.
So it is a lot of area that we manage.
We have sanctuaries that range from the Hawaiian Islands,
Florida Keys and from Lake Huron in Michigan to American
Somalia.
National Marine Sanctuaries were established because of
their ecological, cultural, or recreational importance.
And there are places where we promote conservation while
facilitating commercial and recreational activities as
well.
So these are places that are meant for the public to enjoy.
If you're interested in learning more about the
sanctuaries, you can consider our website at the bottom of
the screen there.
Please feel free to go look at that.
So, our main event -- Bruce, would you mind putting up our
poll question here?
We are going to put these up for those of you who are
watching the recorded version of the webinar so you can see
the poll questions.
>> Okay, we got the first poll question up, Marlies.
>> Okay, so, our poll question is: "What do Americans think is
causing climate change?"
>> And I will look at A, burns fossil fuels for energy; B,
pollution, or C; holes in the ozone.
Okay, Bruce, I think you can go ahead and take that down.
Thank you.
>> Done.
>> Okay.
So in your heads, if you answered either B,
pollution or C, holes in the ozone, you are correct.
The average American has a lot of confusion about the basic
mechanism of climate change.
Research done by an organization called Frameworks
Institute which is a non-profit focus on communication,
showed that when people are asked the question,
how does climate change work; the most common answer is
related to pollution, holes in the ozone and or a description
of the impact of climate change.
Most of the time, people are unable to explain the cause,
hence, our confused looking individuals on our slide.
By meeting people where they are and filling in gaps and
understanding that they have about climate change,
we can begin to create a space to help people understand
what's causing climate change.
And by helping them understand the cause,
we can naturally lead them toward this discussion on
solutions.
So enter NNOCCI or the National Network for Ocean and Climate
Change Interpretation.
As mentioned earlier, NNOCCI is a partnership between informal
sciences, either climate sciences,
cognitive and social sciences and evaluator.
And their mission is to change the world through better
communication techniques and climates change.
NNOCCI believes if we change enough voices improving
communication techniques.
And by "proving," they mean research.
We can change the national discourse around climate change
to be productive, creative and solutions focused.
For me, this is really exciting because we see these words,
productive, creative solutions focused and those are some
things positive which is often hard to encounter when we are
talking about climate change.
So this is really exciting.
So NNOCCI has participated in a bunch of training for science
educators around the country that they call study circles.
And these study circles are in-depth trainings on these
communication tactics that we are going to be talking about
tonight.
If you are interested in going to NNOCCI on-line,
they are currently accepting applications for their final
study circle and applications are open from now until May
31th.
So if you're interested, I would suggest you go google
that, read a little bit more about the study circle and
consider participating yourselves.
So now, to our main event, it's important for us to remember
that we can really teach the basic mechanism of climate
change in less than 60 seconds.
There is a really easy and a simple and effective way to
talk to people about this.
And we're going to show you how to do this in just a few
minutes.
I mentioned earlier, Framework Institute is a nonprofit or
finance space they have done research with over 90000
Americans to determine this clear and most effective way to
communicate climate change.
They called this method of communication,
strategic framing.
So you will hear me talk about that term a lot throughout this
presentation.
Strategic framing is a research fact method of communication.
What it does is clear up misconceptions about climate
change and help people to begin to think about solutions and
how they can become heros of the climates story.
It also creates a sense of hope for climate communicators and
for people who are hearing these communications.
It's simple and concise and that makes it ideal for use in
climate change education.
So there are a couple of different steps that are really
important when we're going through this strategic framing
process and I'm going to walk you through each of these steps
during our presentation tonight.
The first is using a conversational tone.
When we communicate about climate change,
it's really important that we maintain a reasonable,
reasonable tone.
What we really want to avoid is a crisis tone.
When people hear crisis tones, especially when it is in regard
to an issue that's as large as climate change,
they tend to shut down and be unavailable to talk more about
solutions.
So we want to try to maintain this reasonable tone so that we
can lead people through an entire conversation and get to
some important solutions that we can all work on together.
Our next step is leading with a value and I'm going to talk
about each of these in an upcoming slide.
So I'm not going incident as I go through here.
The third step is put issues into context.
The fourth step is use tested metaphors.
The 5th step is connect to solutions.
And the final step is awakening social responsibility.
So as many of you knowing your time in education and working
with communicators, one of the golden rules of communication
is know your audience.
And Frameworks Institutes did a lot of research to determine
what they call the swath of ocean and climate change.
This is basically how the general public is thinking
about ocean and climate change.
Underneath each of these headers, you see bullets.
And what these bullets represent are cultural models.
Cultural models are widely shared ways of thinking that
people use to organize their thoughts on a specific topic.
Basically they are cognitive shortcuts.
Understanding how your audience whether they be the students in
your classroom or the guests that are visiting your informal
science center, or thinking about a topic will help you to
determine the best way to communicate that with regards
to that topic.
This chart shows the dominate ways of thinking that Americans
are referencing when they are on about ocean there are
climate change.
You'll notice that some of these cultural models,
the ones circled here in green are going to be productive
cultural models.
When these models are cued, they lead towards action and
solutions focused thinking.
Unfortunately, also we have some unproductive cultural
models that Americans are carrying around when it comes
to climate change.
These are going to be these red models.
Now, the red models when these are cued,
tend to lead toward inaction or misunderstanding.
So when we're communicating we want to try to avoid using
these red cultural models that are not productive.
So when we focus on these green productive models,
we are automatically leading people towards solutions.
So to give you all a little bit of practice or a little bit of
an idea and I do encourage you to do this at home if you are
listening to the webinar and recording it,
we're going to go through these questions together.
So when you're having these conversations with your
students or your institutions, they may go something like
this: A gentleman walks up and he says coral reefs are
breaking down because of ocean acidification.
And the person he's talking to thinks something is always
changing in the ocean.
I'm sure it will work out.
Now, I would like you to take a look on the right-hand side to
that yellow box with the title, "Nature." This is the nature
zone of cultural models of climate change.
Now, which one of these cultural models do you think is
being pulled forward through this conversation?
Is it, we need to take care of it?
Shared fate or one big web of life?
Works and cycles?
Mother earth, or change is natural, you shouldn't stop it?
Cultural model, you would think that based on the screen,
that concludes that.
>> Okay, we got that up there.
>> Great, thank you.
Okay, I'm just going to give you a second to look through
it.
Okay, I think we can go ahead and pull it down, Bruce.
>>.
Okay.
>> Thank you.
So the answers in this, the cultural models that are being
invoked by this conversation are going to be works in cycle
or change is natural.
Now, the problem with bringing forward these cultural models
works and cycles or change is natural,
if you think change is natural, then,
you have a feeling that it's going to fix itself.
Or the idea that the earth is working in cycles and it's
going to go kind of down but then, pick up and come back.
These ideas aren't going to lead to us being motivated to
change or to take action.
So here is another example of slightly changing the way that
we are framing our conversation so that we're pulling forward a
different cultural model.
Our presenters says the ocean observes the carbon dioxide we
emit into the atmosphere when we burn fossil fuels and that
changes the chemistry of the ocean.
We call this ocean acidulation and it is breaking down coral
reefs.
and the person listening thinks that's such a shame,
I wonder if there is something we can do?
Now, take a look at that yellow box again and decide which
cultural models you think are being cued in this specific
conversation.
Is it we need to take care of it?
Shared faith, one big web of life?
Works in cycles?
Mother earth?
Or change is natural, you shouldn't, couldn't stop it.
Bruce, do you want to put you up the poll for us again?
>> Okay, it's up.
>> Thank you.
So I'm just going to give everyone who is listening a
moment to read through those answers again so they can
decide in their heads which ones they are going to choose.
Okay, Bruce, thank you.
>> It's down.
>> Okay, so as many of you may have guessed,
this framed conversation is likely cuing the cultural model
we need to take care of, or shared fate,
one big web of life.
And as you can see, both of those cultural models are going
to invoke some kind of responsibility in the listener
which will motivate towards action.
It is important to remember further,
we can steer conversations in a productive direction when we
know our audience and we help them them the causes of climate
change.
By adjusting our message, our conversations can be more
productive.
And by focusing on human causes of climate change,
like the bringing of fossil fuels,
the listener was able to focus on human solutions.
Okay, so the next step in our strategic framing is going to
be leading with a value.
Values helps people to connect with the information you're
presenting.
Leading with these values will help your learners to be
engaged with the information that you are teaching from the
very beginning.
It will also help them to think of themselves as part of the
solution.
Framers Institute tested specific values that were most
likely to lead people towards productive and solution focused
thinking.
And the two values that tested the best in their research were
the values of protection and responsible management.
Protections focus on protecting people and places from the harm
and threats that are facing our environment.
Responsible management focus on a responsibility to tomorrow
and future generations with an emphasis on what that looks
like to live up to that responsibility today.
In the resources available the Weicki page,
we have something called value reframe card or value framing
cards.
Those cards are going to give you a little bit more
information on elements of these values that were tested
on protection and responsible management,
so feel free to take a look at those to get some more
background information.
When I think about these values,
I tend to think of protection as kind of the heart strings
value, the kind of warm and fuzzy values and responsible
management is a kind of practical step by stem value.
And I tend to present them in that way.
The important thing to remember is that by leading with these
values, by throwing them out there at the very beginning,
we're engaging people in our conversation from the very
start and they are likely to stay with us throughout our
framing.
So we want to put these values out often, early,
and we want to put them out often.
So we want to bring them back up throughout our conversations
to continue engaging people in our discussions.
So the next step in strategic framing is to fill in gaps with
the metaphor.
Gaps and understanding are those places where the way that
the public thinks about an issue is very different from
what experts understand to be true about that same issue.
We can help to fill in these gaps in understanding with the
correct information so that people can begin to start
thinking about solutions.
Explanatory metaphors are concrete and simple memorable
ways to explain a complex topic.
They can be used to help fill in gaps and understanding that
people have in thinking about climate change.
Because the metaphors are simple and sticky,
they are also great for education.
Metaphors are not something new.
We've been using metaphors since probably the beginning of
human time.
What Frameworks Institute did, they were able to test specific
metaphors that explained specific climate change
elements that were really easy for people to grasp and then
reexplain and reuse.
So Frameworks Institute tested for different metaphors --
well, they tested a lot of metaphors but there were four
specific metaphors that were found to be the most effective.
In tonight's presentation, I'm going to review two of those
metaphors.
In the resources that we are giving to you on the Weiki
page, I have given you what are called metaphor cards,
and I gave you metaphor cards for all four of the metaphors.
So please feel free to visit there and look through each of
the metaphors.
They are explained pretty well in this short cards that are
easy for you to access.
So the first metaphor that we are going to talk about is the
heat trapping blanket metaphor.
This is a metaphor that is meant to explain the basic
mechanism of climate change.
Remember, earlier when I said that you can explain climate
change in 60 seconds or less?
This is how you're going to do that.
Basically, it's simple.
When we burn fossil fuels such as coal,
oil or natural gas for energy, we release excess carbon
dioxide into our atmosphere.
Carbon dioxide is a gas that traps heat.
As the extra carbon dioxide builds up,
it acts like a blanket trapping in heat that would otherwise
escape.
This blanket effect is warning the atmosphere,
disrupting the balance that keeps the climate stable.
There we go.
Simple, effective easy way to explain climate change.
It's also very concrete with this idea of a heat trapping
blanket, meaning that it can be used easily with students in a
classroom.
And another great way to kind of visualize this idea for
people, I have seen at aquariums before,
they used the survival blankets and they cut it into small
pieces.
And while they are explaining the heat blanket metaphor,
they asked people to hold that piece of blanket around their
hand, and they can feel in that short amount of time,
it beginning to heat up even with that thin layer of
blanket.
I think that's a real visual way to explain this to people.
Okay, so our next metaphor that was tested is the regular and
rampant carbon dioxide.
And this is a metaphor to explain how humans are
impacting the carbon cycle.
A quick note that the name of this metaphor,
Regular and Rampant, was tested with adults because the
literation of the words "Regular and Rampant" is
something that is easy to remember.
I heard people mentioning that sometimes with the younger
audiences or with different audiences,
they find this word "rampant" is difficult for people to
grasp.
So I do think that it can be useful depending on your
audience to include the word "extra" or "excess" to help
explain what rampant means.
So the regular versus rampant metaphor.
Plants grow by using regular carbon dioxide that animals
exhale and so some carbon dioxides is part of the normal
process.
But we are also adding carbon dioxide into the air when we
burn fossil fuels like coal, oil and national gas for
energy.
We call this rampant carbon dioxide because there are too
much of it and it's getting out of control.
Okay, so now, that we have a couple of sticky metaphors that
we can use to explain how climate change is happening,
we're going to get into our explanatory chains.
What the explanatory chains which this reveals invisible
processes.
So they explain how if we say climate change is bad for the
animals that live in the ocean for example,
we want people to understand why.
And so explanatory chains help to explain that process.
These are essentially teachable moments.
By filling in gaps and understanding with explanatory
chains, we're inviting our learners into a richer and
deeper understanding of the problems which will allow them
to again, to begin thinking about solutions which is our
main goal, really.
We want to be driving people to thinking about solutions.
Explanatory chain needs to answer three key questions:
What is the original cause of the problem?
What is set in motion by the problem?
And what are the effects?
So I'm going to show you all an example of a explanatory chain
that I created for our mascot, Sanctuary Sam.
Sanctuary Sam is a California sea lion.
So the first question that's going to be answered by the
explanatory chain is what is the cause of the problem?
When we use fossil fuels like coal,
oil and natural gas for energy, we also use them to make
plastic.
When we burn these fossil fuels,
carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere and it acts like
a heat trapping blanket, warms our planet and the ocean.
So you see here right from the beginning,
the cause of the problem which includes our sticky metaphor
for the heat trapping blanket.
Next, we want to mention what is set in motion by the
problem.
Humans and California sea lions like Sanctuary Sam eat fish.
As the ocean becomes warmer, California sea lions are having
a harder time finding food.
The fish they usually eat are moving further away to stay in
cooler waters that they find comfortable.
This means that sea lions have to travel further and search
longer to find the food that they need.
So we're explaining what's happening,
what is set in motion.
And then finally, we want to get to the effect,
what is the effect of this problem?
The ocean is warming and that is messing up the food web one
depends on.
Notice the use of the "we" pulls in both food that the sea
lions depend but also, a food web that humans depend on.
That's kind of pulling in our values again in this
conversation.
So as you can see, this is clearly explained and so people
are able to grasp what's happening.
Now that we have led with a value,
filled in some gaps and understanding using our
metaphors and our explanatory chains,
we can begin talking about solutions.
Highlighting what can be done to make thing better is a real
essential part of framing social problems.
It's important to remember that the solutions that we offer
need to match the scope and scale of the problem.
With a problem like climate change, that's pretty large.
With this in mind, the Frameworks Institute strongly
recommends focusing on a collective wide scale solution
and not individual behaviors.
This isn't to say that individual solutions are not
important because they absolutely are.
But policy level changes are key to addressing a problem as
large as climate change.
By focusing on collective actions,
we hope to frame the public conversation from one that is
about sacrifice or individual actions,
to one that's about citizenship or collective actions.
So we're going to take a minute to think about how we can
reframe individual solutions to collective solutions.
So you will see here two columns.
On the left, we have our individual solutions and on the
right, we have the collective solutions.
So we can move from an individual solution from like
riding your bike, to a collective solution like
supporting bike shares.
An individual solution such as reusable bags can be shifted to
a collective solution of support plastic bag bans.
So we did the live version.
We had people make some suggestions,
so feel free at home if you're listening to this to think of
how you can change an individual solution that's
relevant in your daily communications to a broader
more collective scale solution.
Another example would be something like turning off your
lights as often an individual solution.
But we can change that to support community energy audit
programs.
And you kind of get a feel for how this works.
>> Marlies, I have some of the items that folks from the other
evening wrote down.
I can reveal some of them.
>> That would be wonderful Bruce, thank you.
>> Sure.
One of them is recycling at home and perhaps incorporating
the recycling program at your work.
Carpooling individually or supporting the van shares.
Find local groups for yourself or supporting CSA locations.
Using your car less often or supporting better public
transit.
And naturally one of my favorites was on posting in
your home or supporting bio digestive facilities to
generate energy to get restaurants to contribute their
food waste to.
That's what I got.
>> Wonderful.
Thanks Bruce.
People came up with some really,
really great collective solutions.
And I mention this in a live webinar.
I think it is important to note that coming up with these kind
of ideas for collective solutions and kind of creating
the solutions bank is something that we as a communication
community can begin to do.
And I think it's really powerful for people to think of
all the solutions, the collective solutions that exist
in their neighborhoods or in their areas and share those so
that these are wider -- known among the wider community so
that people hear about these solutions and can begin to get
engaged.
A.
So when we read through those solutions,
you actually realize that naturally,
they are all kind of fitting under one of these three themed
solution strategies.
So part of the goal of strategic framing is to engage
the public in a more informed civic discussion.
With this in mind, we want to talk about solutions that meet
the root cause of the problem.
And for climate change, that's fossil fuels.
So NNOCCI recommends framing all of our solutions
discussions under one of these three prongs.
An energy shifts or moving towards renewable energy,
energy efficiency or reducing fossil fuels,
and then changing the conversation which is talking
with others about how they can reduce their reliance on fossil
fuels and how we as a community as collective,
can reduce our reliance on the fossil fuels.
Knowing that many of you who attend these webinars are
working with students, I wanted to highlight a couple of
student-led collective level solutions because I think it
can be heard sometimes to think about how we can frame this to
use when we're not yet of voting age or not yet able to
engage in some of those more formal civic discussions.
But it's wonderful to see there are plenty of ways that
students are getting involved on a collective level.
So the two examples that I would like to highlight,
on the left, you see a photograph and this is taken
from some work that students did at the National
Presbyterian School in Washington D.C. with their
teacher, Dale Class.
And this was done as part of a climate steward newly funded
project.
And at their school, 5th grade students brain-stormed,
researched and developed a project to address idling in
the carpooling at school.
And as a result of their work to address idling,
larger initiatives, green initiatives happened at their
school including priority spaces in the pick-up lane and
parking for carpoolers, as well as transportation subsidies for
faculty and staff.
So these students were able to have a larger collective
impact.
Another example of this on the right-hand side is students for
zero waste week which is a program that is done through
the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries Ocean Guardian
Program.
There are ways for the school-driven week long
campaign to reduce waste on school campuses and within
local communities with the intention of moving towards
their waste.
A lot of the waste that people are trying to reduce in this
program is energy waste as well as tangible physical waste.
Now, this movement itself was started by students.
In 2012, students at All Saints Day School were working on a
waste reduction effort for their school.
As the students were working, they discovered that there was
no National Zero Waste Week.
With this in mind, they decided to create a zero Waste Week
movement in the United States and they engaged not only other
schools but also local businesses and people in their
communities.
So this is the way that students can really get
involved on that collective level.
Okay, so strategic framing roadmap: We've been making our
way through all the different elements of strategic framing.
We learned about how to use a conversational and reasonable
tone in our communication, how leading with a value,
in particular, responsible management or protection can
help to get people engaged from the very beginning.
How through using explanatory chains and tested metaphors,
we can help people to fill in gaps and understanding so they
understand how climate change is happening and what is
causing it.
And then, finally, we learned how to connect people to
solutions on a collective level so that we can awaken social
responsibility.
Okay, now that we've learned all the elements of strategic
framing, I would like you all to take a look at how this can
all fit together in a fully strategically framed
communication.
So on the bottom of the website here, you see a link HTTPS,
colon, forward slash, forward slash GOO.
GL/L, upper case L, lower case L, NVT.
(https://goo.Glnvt) Look on the screen.
It was probably a little difficult to hear over reading
but you see this pulled from the link up in a separate
window.
And go ahead and watch the strategically framed video.
Go ahead and put me on pause.
Since we are doing this as a recording,
I'm going to go ahead and walk you through an explanation of
the video.
If at this point you have not watched the video yet,
please pause the recording of the webinar,
go watch the video and then come back so we can talk
through.
Okay, so did you all notice the framing elements that were
scattered throughout this communication video?
It started really, really strong by appealing to the
values protection and explaining that climate change
will impact both animals and humans.
It then goes on to explain the basic mechanism of climate
change by using the heat trapping blanket as well as the
regular and rampant metaphors.
Next, the video links to a local creature to explain how
climate change is really impacting our environment.
In this case, it is coral and it explains how climate change
causes problems for coral reefs and the rest of the animals
that live there.
Finally, the video starts to outline solutions.
If you notice, the solutions brought us to a community
level.
This video outlined two specific solutions.
The first was a plastic bag tax instituted in Washington DC.
The second was a disposable water bottle ban in San
Francisco.
When we are presenting solutions in our own
communities at our own sites, it's important that we try to
find local examples of solutions to climate change.
This will allow people to tap into specific actions that they
can take locally in their own communities.
This video does a great job of showing us how strategic
framing can be put together to create a clear and solutions
focused message.
If you're all interested when you go to this link on Youtube,
you will see that other videos pop up.
They need a suite of these videos describing impact,
different animals and different natural resources.
So if you're interested, take a look and see what else is
outlined there.
And finally, our take-aways: It's important to remember that
we have really simple effective and research-backed tools that
we can use to communicate about climate change.
When using these tools, sometimes it feels a little bit
strange to communicate in a way that we haven't done before,
or to practice a metaphor that we're not super familiar with.
So just remember that practice makes perfect.
The more time you spend practicing,
the more natural these things are going to come.
And please practice them with your own audiences.
See how they work.
See what engages people.
See what works best in the circumstance that you're in,
whether you're teaching students or you're
communicating at your science center.
See what works best for you and your audience and use that
tool.
It's important to remember that you will have support.
You have an incredible network here through climate stewards
and you can reach out to that network with questions,
with ideas to get support in your communication.
There is also a network on a web site called climate
interpreter.
Climate Interpreter.org, you can go ahead and create a
profile.
And a lot of people on this site are familiar with using a
lot of NNOCCI strategically framed communications.
So reach out to them with questions,
engage in that community.
And finally, it's really important to remember that the
point of strategic framing is to lead people toward
solutions.
So by framing our communications in this way,
we're creating a sense of hope and we're allowing people with
a concrete understanding of how they can be part of the
solution.
Together, we have the power to inspire change.
If you're interested in learning a little bit more
about communicating climate change and about strategic
framing, I encourage Framework Academy is created by
Frameworks Institute and they have a free online course that
goes into depth on strategic framing,
so everything we talked about tonight but with more details.
If you're interested, go ahead and go to that link on the
website.
You do have to take the course and put it in your cart and
then check out as if you were purchasing the course.
But it is free so you do not have to pay for it.
You can also read the research, Frameworks Institute puts all
of their research online so if you're interested in hearing
more about the sample groups that they use or how they did
the experiments, or when they were done,
go ahead and read the research reports online.
It's always available to you.
Yale Project on Climate Change Communication is another really
robust resource with a lot of research on communicating
climate change.
So I encourage you to go on that website and poke around a
little bit.
And then, finally, please feel free to contact me,
Marlies Tumolo at marlies.tumolo@NoAA.gov.
if you have any questions.
I'm more than happy to talk to people who reach out to me and
interested in finding out more.
Thank you very much.
>> Thanks so much Marlies.
You know, I would like to offer a few more resources.
The first and more accurate if you have a moment or two.
It's an additional resource.
The Psychology of Climate Change Communication.
It's really helpful in terms also of having a better
understanding of how to approach different audiences
focused particularly on climate change.
And Connecting On Climate.org is a wonderful resource for you
to check out.
Marlies had mentioned the other program on climate change
communication, in particular after having taken a look at
it, to look at the messaging section.
That will be very helpful for a lot of folks with resources,
and of course Climate Communication.org,
their education researches specifically for addressing
different grey bands of students.
And with that, you know, I do have a few questions Marlies
that we had from some folks yesterday.
One of them, one of the questions that came in last
night was, two of our staff members participated in the
NNOCCI program focused on climate change that started as
a design educational exhibit about climate change.
We did a quick survey including AP students,
regular high school students, middle school students as well
as families to see if they understood the word,
"rampant." We can talk about this a little bit and this
woman found that less than 50 percent of the people on the
poll knew the word or were able to infer its definition.
Now, the question, rampant versus regular essential in
communicating climate change.
If there were another word, you might suggest and how to get
over these bumps at different education levels in differ
areas of the country?
>> Absolutely.
When the research was done through Frameworks Institute,
they did it with American adults.
And they found that this regular versus rampant was a
concept that most of the people that they interviewed
understood.
I do think that it is that you all are experts on your
particular audiences.
So I know that Frameworks Institute would say that the
research fact method, the research was done specifically
with the metaphor as is, regular versus rampant.
So they would recommend that you keep the metaphor as it was
researched.
Now, moving forward, this was not researched with children.
And I think in particular, you mentioned middle school
students, high school students and families that were in your
audience group.
And I think that with those younger audiences,
often using some descriptive words such as "extra" or
"excess" or something they can get ahold of and something that
they can grasp which will help them to fully understand.
What's most important is that you all know your audiences and
you're able to determine what their level of understanding
is.
And I think it's important to use that information in our
communications to help ourselves fill in those gaps
and understanding.
So rely on the research fact methods when we can and when we
need to know beyond that, to increase your understanding.
I think it's important that we do so by providing some extra
explanations for people that are having a tough time
understanding it the way it was originally presented.
>> Thanks Marlies.
Another question that came in was,
how can you determine in advance where your audience is,
sort of in quotes?
Do you think that's possible?
>> Yeah, absolutely.
So I think that one of the ways that we can do that is by
asking questions.
We can engage our audience.
We can ask a little bit about their background,
ask a little bit about what they know before we even start
our presentation or our lesson and that helps to gather a
little background information on what cultural models they
are bringing to the table.
I also think that becoming familiar with the swamp of
climate communication that would show ocean and climate
change, those are the most likely referenced cultural
models for American adults when it comes to climate change.
>> Marlies, why don't we pull that back up and show the
screen.
>> So these are the most referenced.
This has actually been researched.
We know that this is what people are -- these are the
ways that people are understanding their climate
change, at least American adults.
So I encourage you to become familiar with this chart a
little bit and once you have become kind of familiar with
it, you will see that people are referencing these in your
conversations with them.
You will see when something pops up.
And if you see, for example, somebody is referencing eat it
while you can in consumerism.
So you were talking about climate change and they say,
well, lobsters are going to be gone soon,
we better eat them all now.
You can kind of steer your conversation to shift to that
ecco systems valuable research frame, not cultural model.
So being able to determine where people are in these
cultural models, we can visit the ones that are more
productive.
Finally, the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication
has done a lot of research with the American public to
determine how people are thinking about climate change.
So there are different audience profiles that are called the
Six Americas and they explain a lot of about those audience
profiles from difficult demographics,
also where people tend to live, income,
et cetera and where they tend to fall on these scales.
So I encourage you to take a look because it will give you a
background on where people can be and the more that we can
gather information on the research that's been done,
the more set up we are for these communications.
>> Thank Marlies.
You had mentioned earlier a little bit about the NNOCCI
certification process and the website.
What were the questions that were asked about these
scholarships for going through this training and maybe you can
describe very briefly what the steps are for this kind of
training.
>> Yeah, absolutely.
So I want to pull my screen down for a second because I did
pull up for you to see.
So if you go to see us on the web site up here,
WWW.NNOCCL.ORG.
You can find information about the National Network for Ocean
and Climate Interpretation as well as the study circle.
The study circle proposes basically a learning group with
a bunch of Marine science -- with a bunch of science
educators from around the country,
as well as some scientists who were studying,
most of them are studying post-doctorate degrees.
And in their study circle session,
you do three in-personal meetings each four days long.
And you are trained in-depth on all of these strategic framing
methods of communication.
You also participate in weekly reading and homework
assignments as well as engaging in a online community to get a
richer and deeper experience.
So this is all paid for by a grant.
So if you are selected as a participant in the NNOCCL Study
Circle, your travel and your per diem,
and the cost of you going to the locations is covered by the
NNOCCI grants.
So I do encourage people to apply.
If you go to website here, you can see the application.
There is also a lot more information on the
compensations, the different criteria.
You do need to apply with a partner from your organization
and you do need to have support from your supervisor.
So I encourage you to check out the website here and you can
find out more information.
And the next application, this is the last study circle
session.
So if you're interested, I would apply now and the
application closes on May 31st.
>> Thank you.
I think we will close with just those function and there on
both sides was recently involved,
the staff in developing visions for the meetings that they
didn't want the word climate change or to be connected to
such material, but do you have any thoughts about this or?
>> So it absolutely was and I think this is a concern with
all of the political nature has been surrounding climate
change.
This is a concern for people, often that they are worried
about saying climate change.
Climate change, when we talk about strategic framing and
filling in gaps and understanding,
it is important to remember that most of the American
public that we're going to encounter when we're
communicating or when we're teaching about climate change,
are going to be people that are a little bit confused as to how
climate change is happening.
So there is a small percentage of what we consider deniers,
the people that we worry that they will hear climate change
and then they will automatically shut down and
won't listen to any of our communication.
Most people are open.
They just aren't understanding what's happening.
And so I think that with that view in mind,
it's really important that we help fill in the gaps and
understanding and that does involve using the words,
climate change and talking about how the climate is
changing, making sure that we give them concrete metaphors
that they can reference for the mechanism and what's happening.
If you are interested in finding out more about
communicating with these specific audiences, again,
the program on Climate Change and Communication does have
information on communicating with the denier audiences.
So if you encounter a lot of people that you consider to be
deniers in work, there is information on communicating
with those audiences specifically.
But for the general public, yeah,
I would encourage us to keep using the words "climate
change" because this is really big that we are going to have
to work on together and in order to work on it,
we need people to understand what's happening.
>> Thanks Marlies, that's really great.
I very much appreciate your perspective on that.
So earlier we presented on some of the education resources and
one of the things that I again want to point out,
is that all of these resources, you should be able to see here
on our webinar archives page.
We've got links to move forward which are also on the Youtube
page you're looking at right now.
Please take just a few short minutes, take a look at that,
Marlies' slides, her bio as well as her email,
to get back in touch with her, these information slide as well
as the list of cultural models as Marlies refers to,
the benefit for download as well as a framing overview page
and a reframing card focusing on protection,
responsible management as well as a metaphor reframing card,
climate, heat trapping blanket, osteoporosis,
regular and rampant CO2.
And just one of our climate final notes, save the dates,
May 23rd, NOAA book discussion groups, water resources.
You can find out more about it through our list serves which
you can get to and join by going on to the NOAA climate
web page, you go right to it, as well as next Monday,
June 6th, 7:30 p.m.
eastern time, NOAA climate change webinar.
And we will close on again saying thank you to Marlies
Tumolo who is doing a lot of work in the NOAA offices
nationally, Marine Sanctuary.
In fact, she is the education representative on the National
Sanctuary Climate Change and part of her work involves
climate change education and communication training for
folks focused throughout the entire organization which are
14 and going on possibly more nationally marine sanctuaries
across the United States.
If you're interested, please go to that web site.
Thanks a lot for watching and Marlies,
I will give you the final word.
Great, thank you, Bruce.
I wanted to say thank you everybody for attending and
thank you Bruce for hosting this incredible community for
everyone and keep doing what you're doing,
and keep practicing and keep promoting hope,
and we will get to a solution.
>> There you go.
Thanks Marlies.
Have a great rest of the day.
Bye-bye.