i-Three Issue Corps 2016 – Unleashing the Power of Extension on Climate Change Communication

Paul Hill, Team Leader

Extension Assistant Professor

Utah State University

What is the change you are designing to achieve?

Elevate the knowledge base of Extension professionals related to climate change.

How will you measure that change?

Pre/post evaluation, analyzing with T-test method

What is the innovative component or strategy you will implement as a result of the design-a-thon?

Using a MOOC platform (Udemy), never been done before in Extension. Using Facebook dark posts and Google Adwords to target clients, in addition to working with eXtension to reach the 15k Extension professionals

How did the design-a-thon help you?

Helped us narrow down our plan, focus more

Summary:

Is Extension meeting public demand for climate change outreach? Based on a statewide survey, we’ve discovered that half of Utah’s population is “worried about climate change.” Extension educators at the county level are trusted by clients and their community, therefore, helping them with engage clients about climate change is an excellent starting point. Our plan moving forward is threefold:

1. Build a knowledge base within Extension

2. Build a consensus on how to best serve clientele

3. Create tools necessary to help clients through a climate change education program that can be replicated nationally

Contact Information:

• paul.hill@usu.edu