TY - JOUR T1 - The role of climate change education on individual lifetime carbon emissions JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/441170 SP - 441170 AU - Eugene C. Cordero AU - Diana Centeno AU - Anne Marie Todd Y1 - 2018/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/10/11/441170.abstract N2 - Strategies to mitigate climate change often center on clean technologies such as electric vehicles and solar panels, while the mitigation potential of a quality educational experience is rarely discussed. In this paper, we investigate the long-term impact that an intensive one-year university course had on individual carbon emissions by surveying students at least five years after having taken the course. A majority of course graduates reported pro-environmental decisions (i.e., type of car to buy, food choices) that can be attributed to experiences gained in the course. Furthermore, our carbon footprint analysis demonstrates that for the average course graduate, these decisions reduced their individual carbon emissions by 2.86 tons of CO2 per year. Focus group interviews identify that course graduates have developed a strong personal connection to climate change solutions, and this is realized in their daily behaviors and through their professional careers. The paper discusses in more detail the specific components of the course that are believed to be most impactful, and it shares preliminary outcomes from similar curriculum designs that are being used with K-12 students. Our analysis also demonstrates that if similar education programs were applied at scale, the potential reductions in carbon emissions would be of similar magnitude to other large-scale mitigation strategies such as rooftop solar or electric vehicles.The authors would like to thank Dr. Elizabeth Walsh for her helpful suggestions on our data analysis and the National Science Foundation (Grant #1513332) for supporting our K-12 science education research. Dr. Cordero acknowledges that he is the majority owner of Green Ninja Inc. ER -