TV Weathercasters and Climate Education: Expanding the Reach of Climate Matters

这项为期三年的倡议的目标是在全国范围内推广一种目前活跃且经过验证的气候教育方法，该方法由电视天气播报员提供。这项工作是由乔治梅森大学、耶鲁大学、气候中心（一个非营利性气候科学研究和媒体制作组织）、美国气象学会、美国国家海洋和大气管理局和美国国家航空航天局合作完成的。该项目将包括四项活动：(1)在全国范围内招募200多名电视预报员（目前参与人数超过100人）；(2)为参与的天气播报员提供专业发展活动和使用气候事宜资料的培训，帮助他们成为有信心和有能力的气候教育工作者；(3)在可能的情况下，为参与的天气播报员制作并分发及时的、本地化的、可播出的图表和科学信息，并与当地的天气和气候事件联系起来，以便他们向观众宣传当地的气候和天气之间的关系；(4)开展研究和评估活动，以提高气象预报员对气候资料的使用率和有效性，并研究对公众了解气候的影响。公众的学习成果将通过准实验方法进行评估，并在项目过程中每年进行两次具有全国代表性的公众调查。指导性假设是，电视天气播报员在社区（即媒体市场）使用气候事项材料的程度与观众对气候的理解随时间的变化之间存在剂量-反应关系。气候事项的发展是基于非正式学习和体验学习的理论。该计划的扩大应用了源自创新扩散和社会营销理论的方法。

The goal of this three-year initiative is to expand the implementation of a currently active and proven climate education method delivered by TV weathercasters around the country. The work is a partnership of George Mason University, Yale University, Climate Central (a non-profit climate science research and media production organization), the American Meteorological Society, and NOAA and NASA. This project will include four activities: (1) recruiting 200 TV more weathercasters nationwide (currently just over 100 are participating); (2) providing participating weathercasters with professional development activities and training on use of Climate Matters materials to help them become confident and competent climate educators; (3) developing and distributing to participating weathercasters timely, localized, broadcast-ready graphics and science information, when possible tied to local weather and climatic events, to make it easy for them to educate their viewers about the local relationships between the climate and the weather; and (4) research and evaluation activities to improve the rate of use and effectiveness of Climate Matters materials by weathercasters over time and to study the effect on learning about climate by the public.Learning outcomes by the public will be evaluated using a quasi-experimental method with nationally representative surveys of the public, conducted twice per year over the course of the project. The guiding hypothesis is that there will be a dose-response relationship between the extent of TV weathercaster use of Climate Matters materials in a community (i.e., a media market) and change over time in viewers' understanding of the climate. The development of Climate Matters is based on theories of informal and experiential learning. The scaling up of the initiative applies methods derived from diffusion of innovation and social marketing theories.