PSAs are short (typically one minute) pieces delivering a message to raise awareness, influence or change attitudes and behavior of a defined audience. This format is especially appropriate for a cross-disciplinary course in climate change, in which the relationship between climate change science and broader society is a recurring theme.

These projects require significant time commitments in which team members work together, which may be a barrier to implementing them in a typical one-hour class period format unless students commit to doing some of the production work during out of school time.

Students research a climate change topic of their choice and create a Public Service Announcement (PSA) that communicates their understanding of the science, raises awareness about the causes and consequences of climate change and motivates people to take action in their communities, families and their own lives. Students learn first-hand about the challenges of communicating about climate change in a compelling way. The PSA project offers students opportunities to use creativity and twenty-first century technology skills while empowering them to become stewards and advocates for social change as it relates to climate change.

Public Service Announcement (PSA) Example Project

Youth Educating the Public is a Science and Media Making initiative through a NASA funded education project: Climate Change Education: Science, Solutions, and Education in an Age of Media. For middle and high school students, climate change is an issue that has always been present in their lives. During the Summer 2011 students participated in a 5 week project which outlined climate concepts that are commonly discussed but not necessarily widely understood.

Fifteen Cambridge students and three UMass Lowell interns created media to transmit and clarify what they learned about the current findings in climate change science for Cambridge residents.

View Climate Change PSA.