1. Home
2. Conferences
3. 2025 Extension Risk Management Education National Conference

Provision of Climate Literacy in the Western Region of the United States

Tauhidur Rahman, Russell Tronstad, and Shannon Neibergs

Summary

The uncertainty of climate change and changing climatic patterns in the Western region presents unprecedented challenges to producers, especially to Socially Disadvantaged and Veterans (SDV) and beginning farmers. However, their climate literacy (CL), necessary for their capacity to access climate information and utilize them in decision-making, is rather limited. For instance, frequently used terms in the climate forecast information fail to convey the intended meanings due to low educational attainments of SDV producers and lack of customization of climate information. Thus, a provision of CL will improve the risks management of producers. However, to provide CL, an appropriate CL Curriculum (CLC) is required.

In collaboration with the Western Center, based on stakeholder engagements throughout the West, we have developed a CLC for educators that they can use to provide CL to producers in their regions. The CLC covers terminologies in climate forecast products, historical weather and climate patterns by counties, impacts of climate change on agriculture and health, and climate adaptation strategies adopted under similar climatic environments, among other issues. Chapters of the CLC have been piloted with SDV producers. The goal of this presentation is to share the CLC with the educators and other conference participants and seek their feedback. The final CLC will be publicly disseminated in summer 2025 as a product of the Western Center, along with CLC website with features to access and customize climate data for 1895-2023, their spatial and dynamic patterns and variability, and ability to identify climate hotspots by county, state, and region.

Details

---