Communities in the United States are increasingly relying on place-based climate adaptation workshops to aid attempts to prepare for—and cope with—climate change, but there is limited empirical evidence about what participants believe these workshops can achieve and what elements they find most valuable. To begin addressing this gap, we sought to understand participant perceptions of effective workshop elements and outcomes across a wide range of locations and workshop formats. We surveyed participants in 33 place-based adaptation workshops that took place in the United States between 2017 and 2020. We sought to understand participants’ perceptions of the outcomes of these workshops and the workshop elements that drove those outcomes. Results suggest that workshop participants commonly believed that they learned, strengthened their sense of efficacy, and deepened relationships with other workshop attendees. Participants identified specific climate actions resulting from the workshop, including knowledge dissemination efforts and project implementation. We argue that effective adaptation workshops can also expand reference groups and foster norms around climate change adaptation.
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Ten Lessons for Effective Place-Based Climate Adaptation Planning Workshops
Community efforts to consider climate change within local planning processes are increasingly common. Place-based climate adaptation workshops are commonly employed tools within these larger processes. The research, to date, on these phenomena has yielded mixed results, and the empirical evidence regarding what makes these workshops more or less effective has been mostly based on small samples in disparate contexts. In an effort to seek consensus regarding what factors lead to effective workshop outcomes, including participant learning and the motivation to take action; improved adaptation planning processes and implementation; and the development or strengthening of positive relationships between the participants, twenty-two experienced climate adaptation workshop facilitators participated in a Delphi study involving iterative surveys followed by focus groups. In this short report, we present a synthesis of consensus-based recommendations resulting from the Delphi study for enhancing place-based climate adaptation workshop outcomes. These recommendations address recruitment; fitting the local context; adequately preparing the participants; clarifying the objectives; facilitation strategies; promoting local leadership, efficacy and accountability; and providing post-workshop support. We discuss the role of these strategies in developing feelings of collective efficacy, local leadership and accountability through social learning.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1810851
- PAR ID:
- 10451771
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Climate
- Volume:
- 11
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 2225-1154
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 43
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Communities facing complex social and environmental challenges may benefit from opportunities for collaborative learning. Place-based climate adaptation workshops, which help stakeholders to incorporate climate projections into site-specific adaptation strategies, are one space where learning can occur. We studied learning in eight facilitated climate adaptation workshops held in-person (n ¼ 2) and online(n ¼ 6) in the United States between 2021 and 2023. Workshops averaged 24participants and included state and local government employees, representatives from non-governmental organizations, interested citizens, academics, and others. We examined declarative, procedural, and relational learning and the processes through which knowledge was created and shared. We found evidence for learning across domains. Participants linked learning to a range of workshop elements, including collaborative workbooks, plenary presentations, and handouts. We found no meaningful differences between online and in-person workshops, suggesting that a range of workshop formats support meaningful learning. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications for understanding and fostering learning,more » « less
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Introduction: Autistic people face systemic barriers to fair employment. Informal learning may promote the self-determination transition-age autistic youth need to overcome and/or transform these barriers. This report focuses on the iterative process of developing video game design workshops guided by feedback from autistic students about instructional strategies they found engaging. This study is part of a three-year-long NSF-funded program of research that seeks to empower autistic youth to move toward successful careers by teaching educators how to more effectively guide them. Methods: In the Summer of 2021, educators at an award-winning NYC-based, not-for-profit, education program, Tech Kids Unlimited (TKU) collaborated with researchers, including autistic students, to iteratively develop and assess two online game design workshops for transition-age autistic youth. Participants selected which workshop they were available for (Workshop 1: n = 18; M age = 16.72 years; Workshop 2: n = 16; M age = 16.56 years). Students in Workshop 2 had more varied support needs and were less motivated to learn video game design than students in Workshop 1. Students completed assessments before and after each workshop and rated their interest in specific workshop activities after each activity. Guided by data from Workshop 1, we revised instructional strategies before conducting Workshop 2. Results: We found little evidence for our hypothesis that attentional style would impact educational engagement. However, video game design self-efficacy and self-determination were often positively associated with engagement. Two industry speakers, one of whom was autistic, were among the highest-rated activities. As hypothesized, video game design self-efficacy and self-determination (and unexpectedly) spatial planning improved from pre- to post-test following Workshop 1. Despite our efforts to use what we learned in Workshop 1 to improve in Workshop 2, Workshop 2 did not lead to significant improvements in outcomes. However, students highlighted instructional strategies as a strength of Workshop 2 more often than they had for Workshop 1. Educators highlighted the importance of group “temperature checks,” individualized check-ins, social–emotional support for students and educators, and fostering a positive atmosphere. Discussion: Findings suggest that interactive multimodal activities, stimulating discussions, and opportunities to engage with neurodivergent industry professionals may engage and empower diverse autistic youth.more » « less
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Abstract Prior research suggests that climate stories are rarely reported by local news outlets in the United States. As part of the Climate Matters in the Newsroom project—a program for climate-reporting resources designed to help journalists report local climate stories—we conducted a series of local climate-reporting workshops for journalists to support such reporting. Here, we present the impacts of eight workshops conducted in 2018 and 2019—including participant assessments of the workshop, longitudinal changes in their climate-reporting self-efficacy, and the number and proportion of print and digital climate stories reported. We learned that participants found value in the workshops and experienced significant increases in their climate-reporting self-efficacy in response to the workshops, which were largely sustained over the next 6 months. We found only limited evidence that participants reported more frequently on climate change after the workshops—possibly, in part, due to the impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on the news industry. These findings suggest that local climate-reporting workshops can be a useful but not necessarily sufficient strategy for supporting local climate change reporting. Further research is needed to illuminate how to support local climate reporting most effectively.
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.3390/cli11020043
