Unpacking climate literacy in science education: What explains students’ willingness to engage in climate action?

Due to the far-reaching and life-threatening consequences of climate change, science education is becoming increasingly important for preparing students to become climate literate citizens. Climate literacy, which encompasses knowledge, skills, and attitudes related to climate change, can provide a strong foundation for informed climate action. While the influence of students' climate change-related knowledge on their engagement in climate action has been the focus of much research and debate, few studies in the field of science education have examined how the combination of cognitive and psycho-social aspects of climate literacy relates to students' climate engagement. The present study addresses this gap by exploring the relative contribution of different aspects of climate literacy (i.e., knowledge, skills, risk perception, and value orientations) to students' willingness to engage in climate action. Using the method of sequential regression analysis, we analyzed data collected from 1309 German and Swedish students. The patterns of the results in both countries are similar: Students' risk perception is found to be the relatively strongest predictor of their willingness to engage in climate action. Value orientations were also identified as strong predictors, while cognitive factors seem to have less explanatory power. Conclusively, our study suggests that science education should consider psycho-social factors alongside teaching of the necessary knowledge, especially if we aim to empower students to go beyond the theoretical discussion of how to combat climate change.