New research by Jason Wiles, professor of biology, and Jeremy Sloane ’16 M.S. ’18 Ph.D. was published in the January 2020 edition of the Ecology and Evolution journal. Their article, “Communicating the consensus on climate change to college biology majors: The importance of preaching to the choir,” looked at how the viewpoints of a group of climate change-accepting biology majors changed after being introduced to scholarly literature.

Before being introduced to the literature, students underestimated the degree of scientific consensus around climate change, were only moderately worried about climate change and were unconfident in their ability to communicate about it. As students came to understand the substantiated scientific consensus, they became more worried about climate change, more confident in their ability to communicate with others about it, and more motivated to take action.