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Using Social Network Analysis to Assess Connections within Climate and Energy Education Organizations: A Case Study Conducted by the Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN)

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Title: Using Social Network Analysis to Assess Connections within Climate and Energy Education Organizations: A Case Study Conducted by the Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN)
Language: English
Authors: Kathryn J. Boyd (ORCID 0000-0002-7825-2713), K. C. Busch (ORCID 0000-0002-4549-5401), Anne U. Gold (ORCID 0000-0002-5309-0762), Emily G. Ward (ORCID 0000-0002-0659-6920), Frank Niepold (ORCID 0000-0002-1124-5359), Kristen Poppleton (ORCID 0000-0002-8719-210X), Don Haas (ORCID 0000-0001-9285-959X), Gina Fiorile-Desranleau, Deb L. Morrison (ORCID 0000-0001-7733-0794)
Source: Environmental Education Research. 2025 31(12):2375-2398.
Availability: Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 24
Publication Date: 2025
Sponsoring Agency: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) (DOC)
Contract Number: NA17OAR4320101
NA22OAR4320151
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Descriptors: Social Networks, Network Analysis, Climate, Energy, Environmental Education, Social Action, Empowerment, Diversity Equity and Inclusion, Racism, Policy, Cooperation
DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2024.2408424
ISSN: 1350-4622
1469-5871
Abstract: Climate change education (CCE) plays a critical role in climate empowerment and addressing the challenge of climate change. We present results from the first social network analysis of CCE in the U.S. We surveyed CCE professionals through an established CCE network and wide dissemination from CCE professionals about their interactions with others across 5 dimensions: (1) climate and energy education; (2) climate action, climate empowerment, or community engagement; (3) workforce development in the climate and energy field; (4) diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism; and (5) climate or energy policy. The resulting network analysis shows some cohesiveness, especially for the first two dimensions; however, network cohesiveness could be improved. The findings also show the keystone organizations and brokers across the CCE field. This study provides a foundation for developing targeted strategies to strengthen CCE for improving coordinated and collaborative climate action.
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2026
Accession Number: EJ1503042
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0189849513;eed01dec.25;2025Dec09.04:39;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0189849513-1">Using social network analysis to assess connections within climate and energy education organizations: A case study conducted by the Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN) </title> <p>Climate change education (CCE) plays a critical role in climate empowerment and addressing the challenge of climate change. We present results from the first social network analysis of CCE in the U.S. We surveyed CCE professionals through an established CCE network and wide dissemination from CCE professionals about their interactions with others across 5 dimensions: (<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref1">1</reflink>) climate and energy education; (<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref2">2</reflink>) climate action, climate empowerment, or community engagement; (<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref3">3</reflink>) workforce development in the climate and energy field; (<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref4">4</reflink>) diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism; and (<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref5">5</reflink>) climate or energy policy. The resulting network analysis shows some cohesiveness, especially for the first two dimensions; however, network cohesiveness could be improved. The findings also show the keystone organizations and brokers across the CCE field. This study provides a foundation for developing targeted strategies to strengthen CCE for improving coordinated and collaborative climate action.</p> <p>Keywords: Climate change education; social network analysis; collective impact; climate empowerment</p> <p>Climate change is causing widespread harm to people and the planet (IPCC, [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref6">22</reflink>]). The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal 13 declares the need for urgent action to curb the negative impacts of climate change (U.N., [<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref7">52</reflink>]). Climate change education (CCE) is seen as an important means to empower action through building climate literacy (Bowman et al. [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref8">8</reflink>]; Cintron-Rodriguez et al. [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref9">13</reflink>]; Kwauk & Casey, [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref10">30</reflink>]; UNESCO and UNFCCC, [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref11">49</reflink>]). Article 6 in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, reaffirmed through Article 12 in the Paris Agreement, signifies strong commitment from the global community to foster climate action through education and training (UNGA, [<reflink idref="bib50" id="ref12">50</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref13">51</reflink>]) and stresses the importance for people of all ages to develop the knowledge and skills required to make responsible decisions and support climate policies that respond to, mitigate, and adapt to climate change.</p> <p>The large scale of climate challenges necessitates coordinated and collaborative educational efforts (Bestelmeyer et al. [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref14">1</reflink>]; Rousell & Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles, [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref15">41</reflink>]). However, CCE in the U.S. is currently fragmented and isolated, with local and regional education networks dominating the landscape (Bowman and Morrison [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref16">7</reflink>]; Turner et al. [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref17">47</reflink>]). It is important that localized efforts are coordinated to leverage lessons learned, ensure diverse participation, and accelerate climate actions (Bowman et al. [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref18">8</reflink>]; Cintron-Rodriguez et al. [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref19">13</reflink>]). To address this challenge, a recent policy document—<emph>An Action for Climate Empowerment National Strategic Planning Framework for the United States</emph>—recommended the development of a nationally-scaled and systematic coordination network for CCE (Bowman and Morrison [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref20">7</reflink>]). To accomplish this goal, we need to better understand the current state of the CCE network.</p> <p>The purpose of this study is to characterize the connections and communication across people and organizations in the CCE field in the U.S. using social network analysis (SNA). The network analysis was conducted using the largest climate education network within the US, the Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN) as a starting place and reached to partners and other organizations for dissemination of the network analysis. This research serves as a first step towards a national landscape analysis of CCE efforts across the U.S. By understanding the current collaborations among individuals and organizations who work in CCE, we can better understand the activities and impacts of CCE at a larger scale, and create targeted support for collective impact.</p> <hd id="AN0189849513-2">Literature review</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0189849513-3">Climate change education for collective impact</hd> <p>Polls show that while the majority of the U.S. public is becoming more informed and concerned about climate change (Leiserowitz et al. [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref21">35</reflink>]; Marlon et al. [<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref22">38</reflink>]), climate change mobilization and empowerment is still only at its beginning (USGCRP, [<reflink idref="bib53" id="ref23">53</reflink>]). CCE is seen as one mechanism to improve knowledge, increase concern, and support action. CCE encompasses a broad range of activities and goals, such as raising public awareness of climate change science, impacts, and solutions; implementing climate change topics into K-12 education; empowering communities to act on climate solutions; preparing the workforce for mitigation strategies; and supporting policymakers to implement climate-smart policies. These broad and diverse approaches are important for implementing climate change solutions (Kwauk, [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref24">29</reflink>]; Otto, et al. [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref25">40</reflink>]; UNESCO, [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref26">48</reflink>]); however, they also remain isolated and disconnected. The large scale of climate challenges necessitates coordinated and collaborative educational efforts (Bestelmeyer et al. [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref27">1</reflink>]; Rousell and Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles, [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref28">41</reflink>]).</p> <p>Due to the regional focus and therefore fragmented and isolated nature of CCE (Bowman and Morrison [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref29">7</reflink>]), a collective impact approach improves collaboration and scales up the impacts across individual CCE efforts (Ledley et al. [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref30">34</reflink>]). Collective impact refers to 'the commitment of a group of important actors from different sectors to a common agenda for solving a specific social problem' (Kania and Kramer [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref31">25</reflink>], 36). Collective impact is distinguished from other collaboration projects by the presence of a backbone organization that provides centralized infrastructure. The backbone organization supports the development and maintenance of a common agenda and shared goals, through mutually reinforcing activities and continuous communication (Kania and Kramer [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref32">25</reflink>]).</p> <p>Backbone organizations play a key role in the success of collective impact efforts (Gillam and Counts [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref33">20</reflink>]), serving as centralized management for multi-sector partnership efforts (Klempin, [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref34">28</reflink>]). To be successful, backbone organizations should be seen as competent and trustworthy, demonstrate ongoing effort to the initiative, mediate relationships and provide connections between cross-sector players, leverage funding, and raise awareness of the organization's value for community members (Turner et al. [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref35">45</reflink>]). Backbone organizations facilitate change-making among participating organizations through regular convenings, accountability to members, national visibility, top-level leader involvement, and coaching (DuBow et al. [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref36">16</reflink>]). Through these purposeful activities, backbone organizations can foster collective learning and spur collective action to achieve collective impacts beyond those attainable by individual organizations (Kania and Kramer [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref37">25</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0189849513-4">CCE backbone organization: the U.S. climate literacy and energy awareness network Climate Lit...</hd> <p>In this paper, we explore the coordination of CCE across the U.S. context through the work of a large national coordination network—the Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN). CLEAN comprises a community of over 800 professionals committed to improving climate and energy literacy and empowerment. CLEAN members include a wide range of professionals from a variety of professional backgrounds, projects, programs, and organizations (Ledley et al. [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref38">34</reflink>]). Members are distributed across the U.S. and internationally, representing climate empowerment, action, and education efforts working at scales from local to international. While CLEAN's efforts have focused primarily on K-12 climate education, informal education, and college-level education, members also represent professional and workforce development including teacher education, policy implementation, scientific outreach & communication, diversity and justice efforts, and work in climate action in various ways.</p> <p>Within the U.S., CLEAN is an example of a coordination network around climate and energy literacy and empowerment, providing much of the infrastructure that a backbone organization offers (Ledley et al. [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref39">34</reflink>]). CLEAN provides a space for communication and collaboration across project and program boundaries. CLEAN focuses on coordination, communication, and exchange of ideas within the CCE community. To do so, CLEAN facilitates weekly video calls, maintains an active email listserv in which members engage in discussions, provides input on climate education policies and strategic opportunities, and hosts networking opportunities at climate change events. These events provide learning opportunities and social-emotional space for CCE professionals to collaborate, negotiate, and discuss challenges and concerns with others in addressing climate change.</p> <hd id="AN0189849513-5">Social network analysis to understand environmental education networks</hd> <p>In this paper, we study the people and organizations involved in CCE using social network analysis (SNA). SNA offers theories and methodology to help describe and explain relationships between entities in a system (Borgatti et al. [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref40">6</reflink>]). SNA centers on social interactions, comprising individuals (called actors) who are connected in some defined relationship (called ties) (Wasserman & Faust, [<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref41">54</reflink>]). Unlike other research methods, SNA uniquely provides the ability to characterize, both visually and quantitatively, the relationships between actors within a group (Borgatti, Everett, and Johnson [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref42">5</reflink>]). These relationships between individuals can be thought of as conduits along which information and attitudes are shared, influencing individual- and group-level action (Carolan [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref43">11</reflink>]). Furthermore, SNA offers theoretical mechanisms to explain how the functionality of the group is dependent on the strength and structure of the interconnections (Borgatti, Everett, and Johnson [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref44">5</reflink>]). As such, SNA can prove useful to understand how the CCE field is structured—who talks to whom about CCE—as well as how it functions, and how it can be improved. Note that we are using an existing network (CLEAN) and partners as the starting place for the data collection.</p> <p>While SNA has only been used in limited ways within educational research (Carolan [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref45">11</reflink>]), a few studies have employed SNA to understand personal and organizational networks in environmental education. For example, Li and Krasny ([<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref46">37</reflink>]) compared three different professional development formats (in-person, online, and mixed) for their ability to expand educators' personal information-seeking networks and change their practice. All three programs increased the educators' number of network connections. Additionally, they found that the number of in-degree centrality (an SNA measure for the number of people that seek information from that person) was related to change in practice across all formats. This means that individuals who were seen as information-havers (rather than information-seekers) were more likely to change their educational practice. In a related study, Li and Krasny ([<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref47">36</reflink>]) identified that facilitated discussions and collaborative projects increased the likelihood of stronger network formation. Similarly, Khalil, Ardoin, and Wojcik ([<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref48">26</reflink>]) surveyed zoo and aquarium educators to better understand how they learned about how to design and conduct evaluation within their professional network. They found that in-degree connections among the educators were predicted by their perceived expertise and reputation. And in a related study, Khalil, Ardoin, and Wojcik ([<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref49">27</reflink>]) identified that discussion among educators fostered greater network growth than other collaborative activities.</p> <p>Other studies have used SNA to examine organizational networks among environmental educators. For example, Wojcik and colleagues ([<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref50">55</reflink>]) used SNA to understand collaborations among environmental organizations throughout the Bay Area region in California. Through surveys, they identified 950 organizations whose work supported environmental learning, defined broadly. These organizations were diverse in terms of size and focused on nearly 30 different fields or topic areas (e.g. environmental education, outdoor recreation, public health) of work. Collaborating organizations tended to cluster together based on similarities of those fields and their shared geographic location. The authors argued that use of a SNA approach across a regional expanse shed light on the social-ecological system of opportunities for environmental education that would otherwise remain hidden.</p> <p>Network strength and function can be developed and nurtured. Across the personal network studies discussed above, some outside entities facilitated interactions among the individuals. Similarly, Wojcik and colleagues ([<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref51">55</reflink>]) also hypothesized that the network structure and function of environmental education organizations across the region could be improved with intentional facilitation of collaborations. In fact, successful collective impact efforts are reliant on relationship building and development and maintenance of mature networks (Ennis and Tofa [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref52">19</reflink>]). As such, SNA can be also used to understand the characteristics of a networked community as well as how networked community change may be supported through backbone organizations (Lawlor & Neal, [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref53">32</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0189849513-6">Research questions</hd> <p>For this study, we explore the collaboration network of people and organizations who work in the field of CCE within the U.S. As such, it serves as the first study to characterize the CCE professional network at a national scale. We do this through the lens of a collective impact backbone organization, to shed light on how those collaborations may be facilitated. The research questions that guided this study are:</p> <p></p> <ulist> <item> Who are the people and organizations within the CCE network in the U.S.?</item> <p></p> <item> How do people and organizations within the CCE network collaborate with one another across the five dimensions of climate and energy education work?</item> <p></p> <item> How can social network analysis contribute to our understanding of the ways in which CLEAN, acting as a collective impact backbone organization, facilitates the structure and function of the CCE network?</item> </ulist> <hd id="AN0189849513-7">Methods</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0189849513-8">Data collection</hd> <p>Data was collected through an online survey. The survey was disseminated through the Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN), the leading climate education coordination network in the U.S. (Ledley et al. [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref54">34</reflink>]), and through climate education professional networks and partners to allow for wide dissemination. The survey was sent to CLEAN's member list of 828 people and shared on social media, including Facebook, X (Twitter), and Instagram. The survey was also shared with CLEAN members during weekly video calls and through their own networks. Dissemination on social media and through newsletters with calls to share the survey widely invited CLEAN members, partners and other CCE professionals to complete the survey.</p> <p>The survey instrument comprised three sections, in alignment with the research questions, with a total of 35 questions (see full survey instrument in Supplementary Material 2). The first section asked respondents about their roles and expertise, affiliation, and sociodemographic information. To answer research question 1 and to characterize participants' professional and personal roles, participants were asked to provide their name, their area of expertise, their organizational or professional affiliation, the target audience of their work, their funding sources, and sociodemographic information. These general survey questions were adapted from Ledley et al. ([<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref55">34</reflink>]).</p> <p>The second section asked respondents to describe their areas of work across five dimensions within climate and energy education: (<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref56">1</reflink>) climate and energy education (specifically focused on formal and informal education efforts); (<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref57">2</reflink>) climate action, climate empowerment, or community engagement; (<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref58">3</reflink>) workforce development in the climate and energy field; (<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref59">4</reflink>) diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism (DEIAR); and (<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref60">5</reflink>) climate or energy policy. Based on the findings from Wojcik and colleagues ([<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref61">55</reflink>]), in which environmental education organizations tended to collaborate with others who shared a focal topic area, these five dimensions were identified as major dimensions of CCE work within CLEAN. These dimensions also align with the CCE field which has had a recent focus on climate justice, community engagement, and policy work (e.g. Bowman et al. [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref62">8</reflink>]; Cintron-Rodriguez et al. [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref63">13</reflink>]; Kwauk, [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref64">29</reflink>]; Kwauk & Casey, [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref65">30</reflink>]). Bowman and Morrison ([<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref66">7</reflink>]) describe a framework for climate education in the U.S. focused on climate solutions, equity and justice, workforce development, accountable decision-making, and lifelong learning in communities, which aligns well with the five dimensions used in this study. For each dimension selected by the participant on the survey, we asked about their professional network of people and organizations with whom they collaborate within that dimension. They were asked to list five people and select five choices from a drop-down roster of organizations with the option to provide additional organizations in an open-ended text box. The dropdown list of organizations was created from the top 120 organizations that were associated with active CLEAN members and CLEAN partner organizations. The format for the SNA questions were modeled after best practices (e.g. Borgatti, Everett, and Johnson [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref67">5</reflink>]). For instance, a drop -down menu was used to decrease the burden of response, while an open-ended text box was allowed to capture all possible responses.</p> <p>The third portion of the survey included specific questions about the participants' interactions with CLEAN—such as the length of time they had been involved with CLEAN, their perceived usefulness of CLEAN resources, and participation in CLEAN events.</p> <hd id="AN0189849513-9">Data analysis</hd> <p>A total of 262 responses were received, from which we removed 74 incomplete responses (completed less than 25% of survey) and merged 15 duplicates (responses from the same person), reducing the number of complete responses to 173 for the analysis.</p> <p>Relative frequencies were calculated for all questions. From the responses to the SNA questions, we created a list of all people and organizations mentioned. UCINET (Borgatti, Everett, and Freeman [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref68">4</reflink>]), a social network analysis software, was used to visualize and quantify the levels of collaboration. First, separate SNA plots were created to visualize the networks for each of the dimensions. Then, SNA indices were calculated to quantify and compare the network cohesion of each dimension and to determine the importance of individual people and organizations within the network (Borgatti, Everett, and Johnson [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref69">5</reflink>]). High-quality visualizations of network graphs were then recreated in RStudio for publication (RStudio Team, [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref70">42</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0189849513-10">Results</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0189849513-11">RQ1. Who are the people and organizations that provide CCE within the U.S.?</hd> <p>Across the five dimensions of climate and energy literacy, survey respondents (<emph>n</emph> = 173) named 608 individual people and 394 organizations as collaborators within their professional networks. (Note: This list of individuals and organizations is larger than the number of survey respondents because respondents named collaborators who may not have completed the survey.)</p> <hd id="AN0189849513-12">Professional roles and demographics</hd> <p>Of the 173 total respondents, 98 were members of CLEAN (57%). Most respondents reported being engaged in the climate action, climate empowerment, or community engagement dimension and the climate and energy education dimension, while fewer respondents described involvement in the workforce development dimension and the diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism dimension, and the least amount engaged in the policy dimension (see Table 1). Respondents mostly identified as educators, scientists, and community organizers (see Table 2). They worked with youth, educators, adults, communities, scientists, and media (Table 2). Respondents reported their main interaction with other professionals as happening mostly through emails, conferences, social media, professional organizations, and email lists (Table 2). Demographics are reported in Table 3.</p> <p>Table 1. Respondent dimensions of work.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead><tr><td>Dimension</td><td>Percentage</td></tr></thead><tbody valign="top"><tr><td>Climate action, empowerment, or community engagement</td><td char=".">65%</td></tr><tr><td>Climate and energy education</td><td char=".">63%</td></tr><tr><td>Workforce development</td><td char=".">38%</td></tr><tr><td>Diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism</td><td char=".">37%</td></tr><tr><td>Policy</td><td char=".">16%</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>1 Note: For many questions respondents could choose more than one response, so percentages may add up to more than 100%. If respondents skipped questions, the cumulative percentages added up to less than 100%, as totals were calculated based on the number of respondents.</p> <p>Table 2. Respondent roles and interactions.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead><tr><td>Category</td><td>Percentage</td></tr></thead><tbody valign="top"><tr><td><bold>Professional Role</bold></td></tr><tr><td>College educators</td><td char=".">44%</td></tr><tr><td>Non-formal/Informal educators</td><td char=".">43%</td></tr><tr><td>Professional Development providers</td><td char=".">41%</td></tr><tr><td>Curriculum developers</td><td char=".">27%</td></tr><tr><td>Physical or natural scientists</td><td char=".">20%</td></tr><tr><td>K-12 classroom teachers</td><td char=".">16%</td></tr><tr><td>Community organizers</td><td char=".">12%</td></tr><tr><td>Social scientists</td><td char=".">11%</td></tr><tr><td>Health expert (including mental health)</td><td char=".">7%</td></tr><tr><td>Media specialist (including social media specialists, journalists, writers)</td><td char=".">6%</td></tr><tr><td>Government (including Tribal and urban planners)</td><td char=".">3%</td></tr><tr><td>Artist</td><td char=".">2%</td></tr><tr><td>Funder</td><td char=".">2%</td></tr><tr><td>Economist</td><td char=".">2%</td></tr><tr><td><bold>Audience Served</bold></td></tr><tr><td>Youth</td><td char=".">53%</td></tr><tr><td>College students</td><td char=".">47%</td></tr><tr><td>Classroom teachers</td><td char=".">40%</td></tr><tr><td>Young adults</td><td char=".">40%</td></tr><tr><td>Adults</td><td char=".">39%</td></tr><tr><td>Non-formal/informal educators</td><td char=".">35%</td></tr><tr><td>Communities</td><td char=".">32%</td></tr><tr><td>College educators</td><td char=".">25%</td></tr><tr><td>Scientists</td><td char=".">21%</td></tr><tr><td>Small children (<5 years)</td><td char=".">18%</td></tr><tr><td>Media specialists or journalists</td><td char=".">11%</td></tr><tr><td>Families</td><td char=".">2%</td></tr><tr><td>Graduate Students</td><td char=".">1%</td></tr><tr><td>School leaders</td><td char=".">1%</td></tr><tr><td>Policy makers</td><td char=".">1%</td></tr><tr><td><bold>Professional Interaction Methods</bold></td></tr><tr><td>Email</td><td char=".">58%</td></tr><tr><td>Conferences</td><td char=".">34%</td></tr><tr><td>Social media</td><td char=".">30%</td></tr><tr><td>Professional organizations</td><td char=".">22%</td></tr><tr><td>Email lists</td><td char=".">22%</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>2 Note: For many questions respondents could choose more than one response, so percentages may add up to more than 100%. If respondents skipped questions, the cumulative percentages added up to less than 100%, as totals were calculated based on the number of respondents.</p> <p>Table 3. Respondent Demographics.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead><tr><td>Category</td><td>Percentage</td></tr></thead><tbody valign="top"><tr><td><bold>Career Stage</bold></td></tr><tr><td>Late career (10 or more years experience)</td><td char=".">28%</td></tr><tr><td>Mid-career (6-10 years experience)</td><td char=".">13%</td></tr><tr><td>Early career (1-5 years experience)</td><td char=".">17%</td></tr><tr><td>Students</td><td char=".">10%</td></tr><tr><td><bold>Gender</bold></td></tr><tr><td>Man</td><td char=".">71%</td></tr><tr><td>Woman</td><td char=".">38%</td></tr><tr><td>Another gender</td><td char=".">1%</td></tr><tr><td><bold>Race/ethnicity</bold></td></tr><tr><td>White</td><td char=".">47%</td></tr><tr><td>American Indian or Alaskan Native</td><td char=".">20%</td></tr><tr><td>Asian or Asian American</td><td char=".">14%</td></tr><tr><td>Black, African American, or African</td><td char=".">8%</td></tr><tr><td>Hispanic or Latinx</td><td char=".">5%</td></tr><tr><td>Not listed</td><td char=".">3%</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>3 Note: For many questions respondents could choose more than one response, so percentages may add up to more than 100%. If respondents skipped questions, the cumulative percentages added up to less than 100%, as totals were calculated based on the number of respondents.</p> <hd id="AN0189849513-13">Description of organizations</hd> <p>Respondents listed a total of 394 CCE organizations of which they are a part or with which they collaborate (see Supplementary Material Table A.1 for full list). One important finding was that almost half of the respondents (42%) did not identify an organizational affiliation, rather they described themselves as an independent contractor, retired, or doing this work on their own time. Organizations represented a wide range of types, including governmental, non-governmental, non-profit, and professional organizations. Furthermore, organizations work at various scales, including international, national, state, and city.</p> <hd id="AN0189849513-14">RQ2. How do people and organizations within the CCE network collaborate with one another acro...</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0189849513-15">Whole network trends</hd> <p>'Whole network' analysis describes the entire group, rather than individuals within the group (Borgatti, Everett, and Johnson [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref71">5</reflink>]). We examined network cohesion, which refers to the 'connectedness' of a network (Borgatti, Everett, and Johnson [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref72">5</reflink>]). There are three main whole network trends that emerged from the data. First, the CCE network, while large, has low cohesion. Second, the network of organizations is more cohesive than the networks of individual people. Third, the network for the education dimension is the most connected, followed by the action, DEIAR, workforce, and lastly, policy dimensions. These trends can be seen in both the network graphs (see Figures 1 and 2) as well as the SNA indices (Table 4).</p> <p>Figure 1.</p> <p>Collaboration among people around the five climate/energy literacy dimensions. Orange circles denote CLEAN members and blue circles denote non-members. 1a shows all people; 1b shows people listed in the climate & energy education dimension; 1c shows people listed in the climate action, climate empowerment, or community engagement dimension; 1d shows people listed in the workforce development in the climate & energy field dimension; 1e shows people listed in the diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism (DEIAR) dimension; 1f shows people listed in the climate or energy policy dimension.</p> <p>PHOTO (COLOR)</p> <p>PHOTO (COLOR)</p> <p>PHOTO (COLOR)</p> <p>Figure 2.</p> <p>Collaboration among organizations around the five climate/energy literacy dimensions. 2a shows all organizations; 2b shows organizations listed in the climate & energy education dimension; 2c shows organizations listed in the climate action, climate empowerment, or community engagement dimension; 2d shows organizations listed in the workforce development in the climate & energy field dimension; 2e shows organizations listed in the diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism (DEIAR) dimension; 2f shows organizations listed in the climate or energy policy dimension.</p> <p>PHOTO (COLOR)</p> <p>PHOTO (COLOR)</p> <p>PHOTO (COLOR)</p> <p>Table 4. SNA measures comparing features of the network across five dimensions of climate literacy work for people and organizations.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead><tr><td>Dimension</td><td># Nodes</td><td># Ties</td><td>Average Degree</td><td>Density</td><td>Degree Centralization</td><td>Components</td><td>Connectedness</td><td>Diameter</td></tr></thead><tbody valign="top"><tr><td>All-People</td><td char=".">410</td><td char=".">367</td><td char=".">0.895</td><td char=".">.002</td><td char=".">0.089</td><td char=".">395</td><td char=".">0.02</td><td char=".">8</td></tr><tr><td>All- Organizations</td><td char=".">183</td><td char=".">338</td><td char=".">1.847</td><td char=".">0.01</td><td char=".">0.241</td><td char=".">170</td><td char=".">0.075</td><td char=".">7</td></tr><tr><td>Education-People</td><td char=".">403</td><td char=".">326</td><td char=".">0.809</td><td char=".">0.002</td><td char=".">0.064</td><td char=".">389</td><td char=".">0.017</td><td char=".">8</td></tr><tr><td>Education-Organizations</td><td char=".">183</td><td char=".">253</td><td char=".">1.383</td><td char=".">0.008</td><td char=".">0.207</td><td char=".">175</td><td char=".">0.032</td><td char=".">8</td></tr><tr><td>Action-People</td><td char=".">302</td><td char=".">165</td><td char=".">0.546</td><td char=".">0.002</td><td char=".">0.040</td><td char=".">298</td><td char=".">0.003</td><td char=".">4</td></tr><tr><td>Action-Organizations</td><td char=".">141</td><td char=".">109</td><td char=".">0.773</td><td char=".">0.006</td><td char=".">0.221</td><td char=".">137</td><td char=".">0.018</td><td char=".">5</td></tr><tr><td>DEIAR-People</td><td char=".">294</td><td char=".">142</td><td char=".">0.483</td><td char=".">0.002</td><td char=".">0.028</td><td char=".">294</td><td char=".">0.002</td><td char=".">4</td></tr><tr><td>DEIAR-Organizations</td><td char=".">130</td><td char=".">77</td><td char=".">0.592</td><td char=".">0.005</td><td char=".">0.085</td><td char=".">128</td><td char=".">0.012</td><td char=".">6</td></tr><tr><td>Workforce-People</td><td char=".">232</td><td char=".">63</td><td char=".">0.272</td><td char=".">0.001</td><td char=".">0.037</td><td char=".">232</td><td char=".">0.001</td><td char=".">2</td></tr><tr><td>Workforce-Organizations</td><td char=".">124</td><td char=".">52</td><td char=".">0.419</td><td char=".">0.003</td><td char=".">0.208</td><td char=".">124</td><td char=".">0.005</td><td char=".">2</td></tr><tr><td>Policy-People</td><td char=".">195</td><td char=".">32</td><td char=".">0.164</td><td char=".">0.001</td><td char=".">0.030</td><td char=".">195</td><td char=".">0.001</td><td char=".">2</td></tr><tr><td>Policy-Organizations</td><td char=".">117</td><td char=".">45</td><td char=".">0.385</td><td char=".">0.003</td><td char=".">0.090</td><td char=".">115</td><td char=".">0.005</td><td char=".">3</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>In the graphs (Figures 1 and 2), the circles are called 'nodes' and represent individual people or organizations who took the survey and/or were named as collaborators. (Note: Due to IRB protocol, the identity of individual people is protected through the use of an unidentifiable number in the graphs. A list of all organizations in the networks is included in Appendix Table A.1.) The lines in between the circles represent a 'tie' between the nodes, in this case it represents when a survey respondent mentioned that they collaborated with a specific person or organization. For these graphs, ties do not indicate a direction of who named who, for ease of readability.</p> <p>The SNA indices calculated for network cohesion (Table 4) were: (<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref73">1</reflink>) <emph>number of nodes</emph>—the total number of people or organizations in the network; (<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref74">2</reflink>) <emph>number of ties</emph>—the total number of reported connections between people/organizations; (<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref75">3</reflink>) <emph>average degree</emph>—the average number of connections per person/organization; (<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref76">4</reflink>) <emph>density</emph>—the number of connections as a proportion to the number of connections possible; (<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref77">5</reflink>) <emph>degree centralization</emph>—the proportion that nodes are connected to a single node; (<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref78">6</reflink>) <emph>components</emph>—the number of separate groups in a network; (<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref79">7</reflink>) <emph>connectedness</emph>—the proportion of pairs of people/organizations can reach each other through their ties (ranges from 0 to 1); and (<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref80">8</reflink>) <emph>diameter</emph>—how many people/organizations there are traveling from one edge of the network to the other (Borgatti, Everett, and Johnson [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref81">5</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0189849513-16">The CCE network has low cohesion</hd> <p>Network cohesion can be determined through the SNA indices (Table 4). For example, 410 people reported collaborations with 367 other people. This means that, on average, there were only 0.895 connections per person in the network (called average degree). Similarly, the network of organizations has an average degree of 1.847, meaning that there were less than 2 connections per organization. The number of connections (average degree) is normalized on a scale of 0 to 1 when network density is calculated. Network density is a measure of the number of actual connections as compared to the maximum possible (Borgatti, Everett, and Johnson [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref82">5</reflink>]). A density of 0 means that all nodes have no connections to any other node, and a density of 1 means that all nodes are connected to all other nodes. Density is low across all CCE networks, ranging from 0.001 (0.1% of possible connections are actualized) to 0.01 (only 1% of possible connections are actualized).</p> <hd id="AN0189849513-17">CCE networks of organizations are more cohesive than networks of people</hd> <p>Although the networks of people are larger (they have more nodes and ties) the organizational networks have higher cohesiveness. For example, the density indices are larger for the CCE network of organizations (0.01) than for the CCE network of people (0.002). Across the other cohesion indices, this trend holds true (see Table 4).</p> <hd id="AN0189849513-18">The network for the education dimension is the most cohesive</hd> <p>When comparing networks for the five dimensions of climate and energy education work to each other, the networks for education are the most connected, followed by action, DEIAR, workforce, and lastly, policy dimensions. This trend is visually supported by the SNA graphs. The graphs for the education dimension (Figures 1b and 2b) show more nodes and ties than any of the other dimensions. The SNA indices concur. For example, the education dimension network of people has an average of 0.809 ties whereas the policy dimension network has only 0.164 average ties. Similarly, the education dimension network of organizations has 1.383 ties whereas the policy dimension has only 0.385 ties (see Average Degree measure in Table 4). The same trend holds across the other SNA indices. Taken together, these findings suggest that there is greater collaboration among people and organizations around the education dimension than for the other dimensions, and the least connected dimension is climate policy. This finding aligns with the number of people who reported working in those dimensions for the entire survey sample.</p> <hd id="AN0189849513-19">Keystone collaborators within the CCE network</hd> <p>In addition to assessing overall network cohesiveness, SNA is also useful for interpreting the importance of individual people and/or organizations within the network. We examined centrality, which characterizes the location of a node within a network (Borgatti, Everett, and Johnson [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref83">5</reflink>]). In the graphs, those nodes with higher centrality (more connections) will be positioned more towards the center of the graph and those nodes with a lower centrality (less connections) will be positioned towards the outside of the graph (see Figures 1 and 2). In addition, two indices were used in these analyses: <emph>in-degree centrality</emph>—the number of ties directed to each node—and <emph>betweenness centrality</emph>—how often that node appears between two other nodes (Borgatti, Everett, and Johnson [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref84">5</reflink>]). We examined patterns of in-degree and betweenness centrality for the top 20 people and organizations across all dimensions summatively (see Tables 5 and 6). All in-degree centrality rankings can be found in the Appendix (see Table A.2).</p> <p>Table 5. Rankings of in degree centrality of organizations across all dimensions of climate/energy literacy work. Organizations with a start (*) have an affiliation with a CLEAN Network Leadership Board Member.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead><tr><td>Rank</td><td>Organization</td><td>In Degree Centrality</td></tr></thead><tbody valign="top"><tr><td>1</td><td>ACE - Action for Climate Emergency/Alliance for Climate Education (formerly)*</td><td char=".">54</td></tr><tr><td>2</td><td>ACE - Alliance for Climate Empowerment (UNFCC)*</td><td char=".">40</td></tr><tr><td>3</td><td>NOAA- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration*</td><td char=".">39</td></tr><tr><td>4</td><td>Adrill Education/Ice-Drill Education</td><td char=".">31</td></tr><tr><td>5</td><td>AAAS - Association for the Advancement of Science</td><td char=".">30</td></tr><tr><td>6</td><td>AGU - American Geophysical Union</td><td char=".">28</td></tr><tr><td>7</td><td>Climate Generation*</td><td char=".">25</td></tr><tr><td>8</td><td>AGI - American Geosciences Institute</td><td char=".">24</td></tr><tr><td>9</td><td>American Meteorological Society*</td><td char=".">22</td></tr><tr><td>10</td><td>Aspen Global Change Institute</td><td char=".">21</td></tr><tr><td>11</td><td>CIRES- Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences*</td><td char=".">20</td></tr><tr><td>12</td><td>Association of Zoos and Aquariums</td><td char=".">20</td></tr><tr><td>13</td><td>ASTC- Association of Science and Technology Centers</td><td char=".">19</td></tr><tr><td>14</td><td>Alaska Sea Life Center</td><td char=".">14</td></tr><tr><td>15</td><td>BayCLIC- Bay Area Climate Literacy Impact Collaborative</td><td char=".">14</td></tr><tr><td>16</td><td>American Public Gardens Association</td><td char=".">13</td></tr><tr><td>17</td><td>CAVU- Climate Advocates Voces Unidas</td><td char=".">13</td></tr><tr><td>18</td><td>Alliance to Save Energy</td><td char=".">12</td></tr><tr><td>19</td><td>NSF- National Science Foundation</td><td char=".">12</td></tr><tr><td>20</td><td>NAAEE- North American Association for Environmental Education</td><td char=".">11</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>4 Note that the CLEAN Network is hosted at CIRES and funded by NOAA, thus some respondents may have referenced CLEAN activities by picking either CIRES or NOAA instead of CLEAN directly.</p> <p>Table 6. Rankings of betweenness centrality of organizations across all dimensions of climate/energy literacy work. Organizations with a start (*) have an affiliation with a CLEAN Network Leadership Board Member.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead><tr><td>Rank</td><td>Organization</td><td>Betweenness Centrality</td></tr></thead><tbody valign="top"><tr><td>1</td><td>Climate Generation*</td><td char=".">1138.967</td></tr><tr><td>2</td><td>NOAA- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration*</td><td char=".">896.85</td></tr><tr><td>3</td><td>NCSE- National Center for Science Education</td><td char=".">613.017</td></tr><tr><td>4</td><td>Wild Center*</td><td char=".">387.167</td></tr><tr><td>5</td><td>EcoRise</td><td char=".">346.333</td></tr><tr><td>6</td><td>PRI- Paleontological Research Institution*</td><td char=".">342</td></tr><tr><td>7</td><td>CIRES- Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences*</td><td char=".">316.633</td></tr><tr><td>8</td><td>CLEAN*</td><td char=".">305.833</td></tr><tr><td>9</td><td>American Meteorological Society*</td><td char=".">165.383</td></tr><tr><td>10</td><td>International Arctic Research Center at UAF</td><td char=".">132.667</td></tr><tr><td>11</td><td>UCMP - University of California Museum of Paleontology</td><td char=".">132.5</td></tr><tr><td>12</td><td>Climate Change Education.org/Mobile Climate Science Labs</td><td char=".">83.817</td></tr><tr><td>13</td><td>Renewable Energy Alaska Project</td><td char=".">65.667</td></tr><tr><td>14</td><td>UCAR SciEd - University Corporation for Atmospheric Research</td><td char=".">55.5</td></tr><tr><td>15</td><td>CLEO Institute- Climate Leadership Engagement Opportunities Institute</td><td char=".">50.167</td></tr><tr><td>16</td><td>Cornell University</td><td char=".">40.5</td></tr><tr><td>17</td><td>Bonneville Environmental Foundation</td><td char=".">35</td></tr><tr><td>18</td><td>--</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>19</td><td>--</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>20</td><td>--</td><td>--</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>5 Note that the CLEAN Network is hosted at CIRES and funded by NOAA, thus some respondents may have referenced CLEAN activities by picking either CIRES or NOAA instead of CLEAN directly.</p> <p>There are several organizations that serve as keystone collaborators in CCE, indicated by high levels of in-degree centrality (see Table 5). A high in-degree centrality means that respondents seek collaboration with those organizations. The top 20 organizations range from non-profits, governmental agencies, professional organizations, and university-based organizations. Betweenness centrality assesses the extent to which a node lies between other unconnected nodes, and thus detects organizations that serve as important connectors or brokers in a network (see Table 6). Several organizations were identified as both collaborators and connectors, including Climate Generation, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, and the American Meteorological Society. The range of organizations also includes non-profits such as the National Center for Science Education, the Wild Center, and the Paleontological Research Institution. Several organizations with affiliations to universities were identified as connectors, including the International Arctic Research Center at UAF, University of California Museum of Paleontology, and Cornell University.</p> <hd id="AN0189849513-20">Engagement in CLEAN as an Example of CCE Network Connections</hd> <p>As described above, 57% of respondents described themselves as CLEAN members. CLEAN members reported high engagement with the network by visiting the website (58%), joining (44%) or presenting (28%) on weekly CLEAN video calls, visiting (24%) or sharing (20%) CLEAN social media, and attending a CLEAN social gathering at a conference (22%). CLEAN members reported using CLEAN to learn about (50%) or market (36%) events and opportunities, discuss climate and energy topics (42%), network (41%), and discuss teaching ideas (34%). Members also engaged through the email list; on average they reported reading messages sometimes to frequently (average 2.5 on a three-point scale: 'never' − 0, 'rarely' − 1, 'sometimes' − 2, 'frequently' − 3). CLEAN members ranked the usefulness of CLEAN offerings on a four-point scale ('unaware' − 0, 'not useful' − 1, 'slightly useful' − 2, 'very useful' − 3, 'extremely useful' − 4). Two offerings were reported as very useful, the email list (2.9 on average) and the website and educational resource collection (2.7 on average), and the weekly CLEAN calls were considered useful (2.2 on average).</p> <hd id="AN0189849513-21">RQ3. How can social network analysis contribute to our understanding of the ways in which CLE...</hd> <p>In the network map that comprises about 43% non CLEAN members and 57% CLEAN members, CLEAN holds a central and important organizational position in the CCE network. CLEAN is centrally located in all the SNA graphs except workforce and policy (where few organizations are present) (see Figures 1b and 2b). CLEAN was identified as a collaborator in 3 out of the 5 dimensions, with an in-degree centrality ranking of #35 across all dimensions of climate literacy, #40 in education, #24 in action, and #19 in DEIAR. In addition, CLEAN serves as an important broker organization, with a high betweenness centrality measure: #8 across all dimensions of climate literacy, #5 in education, and #6 in DEIAR. Furthermore, the affiliated organizations of CLEAN Leadership Board members (indicated by an * in Tables 5 and 6) are prominent within the top 20 most central organizations.</p> <p>Additionally, individual people who are CLEAN members are centrally located within the network. Visually this trend can be seen most clearly in the SNA graphs (Figure 1), which were colorized to indicate those 148 individual people who are members of CLEAN (orange) and those 460 people who are not (blue). This interpretation is bolstered by an analysis of the average degree centrality across all dimensions of those people within CLEAN (<emph>M</emph> = 2.99, <emph>SD</emph> = 4.70) as compared to those not in CLEAN (<emph>M</emph> = 0.85, <emph>SD</emph> = 0.70) (<emph>t</emph>(<reflink idref="bib136" id="ref85">136</reflink>) = 5.27, <emph>p</emph> < 0.0001). Furthermore, CLEAN members act as bridgers—defined as those CLEAN members that are connected inward to the larger network and are connected outward to non-CLEAN members. For example, in the graph of the network of people across all dimensions (Figure 1a), all but two pendants connected to the central region are connected by a CLEAN member node.</p> <hd id="AN0189849513-22">Limitations</hd> <p>While this study provides important insights into the CCE landscape in the U.S., there are a number of limitations to the study. The survey was disseminated through CLEAN network media, partners, and connections. Only those who read CLEAN emails, follow CLEAN on social media, or were otherwise sent the survey link (e.g. through partners sharing widely) would have seen the survey invitation and responded. The SNA maps and indices show CLEAN as central to the network, which may be an artifact of oversampling those who engage with CLEAN. However, only 57% of respondents describe being a CLEAN member, providing an indication that we successfully sampled beyond the CLEAN network. While our findings do not represent the entire CCE field, they serve as a starting point for understanding the landscape of CCE in the U.S. We plan to follow up with future surveys to all those who were listed as network connections to gather a more complete picture of the U.S. CCE landscape.</p> <hd id="AN0189849513-23">Discussion</hd> <p>The purpose of this study was to characterize the existing connections and collaborations in the field of CCE in the U.S. The social network analysis identifies the connections that currently exist and highlights areas for growth and strengthening of connections within the CCE landscape.</p> <hd id="AN0189849513-24">CCE is professionally diverse</hd> <p>Our results illustrated that the sampled portion of the CCE field is a professionally diverse community of educators, scientists, and other professionals working with audiences from pre-K to 'gray'. Survey respondents in this study ranged from formal and informal educators working with people across the age span to scientists, community engagement specialists, health professionals, artists, communications experts, and policy makers. CCE has connections to related fields like energy education, community engagement, and policy work. Implementing CCE requires broad collaboration across multiple sectors and levels of agencies, as well as community engagement (Turner et al. [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref86">47</reflink>]). The audiences served by the participants in this study ranged from students and youth to educators and scientists, as well as communities, media specialists and policy makers. Turner and others ([<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref87">47</reflink>]) found that a spread of ideas through people and institutions that occurred through previously established coalition building, advocacy, and collaboration between the government and communities was effective for implementing change in education systems. Existing networks within CCE can provide such a spread of ideas and support at a national level.</p> <p>Fostering collaborations across professions and disciplines is important because transdisciplinary thinking is necessary to develop solutions to important societal challenges such as climate change (Bestelmeyer et al. [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref88">1</reflink>]; Rousell & Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles, [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref89">41</reflink>]). The diverse composition of the CCE field is the ideal setting for transdisciplinary approaches. Cantell et al. ([<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref90">10</reflink>]) developed a bicycle model of CCE, as a metaphorical representation of the essential and interactive aspects of effective CCE. The model provides a transdisciplinary view of CCE, illustrating that affective (emotions, identity, values, motivation, etc.) and behavioral aspects (barriers to action, societal norms, policy, etc.) are necessary alongside the knowledge and skills that are currently the focus of many CCE efforts. While some CCE dimension networks are less cohesive than others, this study shows that people in CCE straddle many disciplinary boundaries, from education to community engagement to policy.</p> <p>Many CCE efforts have been minimally effective with regards to changing student attitudes and behavior (Rousell & Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles, [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref91">41</reflink>]), largely because educators face barriers to implementing CCE (Kamenetz [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref92">24</reflink>]). However, it has been shown that CCE can result in the implementation of climate solutions in various ways, such as through reducing CO<subs>2</subs> emissions (Cordero, Centeno, and Todd [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref93">14</reflink>]) and increasing parental awareness and concern (Lawson et al. [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref94">33</reflink>]). Leveraging CCE networks to share successes and failures provides CCE professionals across disciplines and agency boundaries with the activities, communication and support needed to help members and their audiences take action and implement solutions.</p> <hd id="AN0189849513-25">Evolving dimensions of CCE</hd> <p>Across all the people and organizations in our SNA analysis, a well-populated network of 410 people and 110 organizations involved in climate and energy education emerged (Figures 1a and 2a). Despite more people reporting engagement in the action dimension, the climate and energy education dimension network was the most cohesive (Figures 1b and 2b; Table 4). The networks for the other four dimensions, while critical for CCE, are less cohesive. The second most cohesive network was the climate action, empowerment, or community engagement dimension (Figures 1c and 2c; Table 4). The other dimensions, diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism (Figures 1e and 2e) and workforce development (Figures 1d and 2d), showed mid-range levels of cohesion comparatively. The climate or energy policy dimension was the least cohesive network (Figures 1f and 2f). These differences in network development can be anticipated, given that formal education is often the centralized component of a learning ecosystem, while community engagement and informal education are important components but not as consistently developed (Bevan [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref95">2</reflink>]). Workforce development and justice issues are less integrated but necessary aspects of equitable and inclusive CCE (Kwauk, [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref96">29</reflink>]). Within the U.S., education policy is often implemented at regional or local scales, rather than as a hierarchical coordinated approach (Turner et al. [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref97">47</reflink>]) and that is illustrated in the low cohesion of that dimension. Although these results are expected due to the emphasis on the education dimension within the field of CCE, the broad definition including all aspects of education systems we have used for this study and which define the scope of the CLEAN network emphasizes the importance of strengthening connections across dimensions.</p> <p>This study is the first exploration of a national CCE network using SNA, however, the CCE network in this study can be compared to networks in education or climate change. Corlew et al. ([<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref98">15</reflink>]) studied an expansive but connected regional network of climate change professionals who focused on scientific research in the Pacific Islands. They showed that communication occurred amongst subregions and across disciplinary boundaries, with more centralized groups being more connected through networking. In education, SNA has shown that teacher networks are important for teacher efficacy and student engagement (Moolenaar et al. [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref99">39</reflink>]) and that a few central actors can help networks share information through various network-strengthening methods (Ryymin et al. [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref100">43</reflink>]). These findings align with this study, where a centralized group is critical to the connectivity of network members. This centralized group includes several member clusters that are bridged by organizational or individual nodes. However, these member clusters are not isolated or completely disconnected from the larger network, allowing for knowledge exchange and partnerships.</p> <p>Across all five dimensions of the SNA, the organizational networks are more cohesive than the networks displaying individual members as nodes. This illustrates the strength and importance of organizational partnerships within CCE. However, the significant number of people without attachments to organizations highlights the important role that unaffiliated individuals play in the strength of CCE. Findings from the community of practice literature document how peripheral individuals can move toward the center with time and engagement (Lave & Wenger, [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref101">31</reflink>]; Stylinski et al. [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref102">44</reflink>]). Stylinski and others ([<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref103">44</reflink>]) have shown that a structured community, a focus on content, and collaboration can support a community of practice in informal climate education by creating value for members through exposure to new topics, shared experiences, and a sense of belonging and connection with others who do similar work. CLEAN provides this framework for members, and the SNA results show an influence on the larger CCE field as connections are made within and outside of the network. SNA can be used to examine the structures within the subgroups of the CCE community of practice (Jan and Vlachopoulos [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref104">23</reflink>]) and to provide an understanding of the nature and type of interactions between members (Cela, Sicilia, and Sánchez [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref105">12</reflink>]). SNA findings can inform intentional member and subgroup engagement. In this study, we identified the centrality of the subgroups within CCE and plan to use the outcomes to strengthen existing connections and target specific peripheral individuals who could become more connected to the network.</p> <hd id="AN0189849513-26">CLEAN as a CCE backbone organization</hd> <p>The results indicate that CLEAN acts as a backbone organization that effectively connects members and non-members (Ledley et al. [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref106">34</reflink>]). We interpret that the activities and communications (DuBow et al. [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref107">16</reflink>]; Turner et al. [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref108">46</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref109">45</reflink>]) that CLEAN offers provide value to climate education professionals. Collective impact backbone organizations are intermediary agencies, serving as centralized administration for partnership efforts (Gillam and Counts [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref110">20</reflink>]; Klempin, [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref111">28</reflink>]). The results from the SNA indicate how CLEAN mediates communication and connections (DuBow et al. [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref112">16</reflink>]). The respondents who are familiar with these activities (57%), reported finding CLEAN offerings useful, and reported using CLEAN communications for discussion, networking, and to learn about and market various opportunities. The fact that non-CLEAN members report connections to the network indicate that these offerings reach beyond CLEAN members and benefit other climate education professionals. Additionally, CLEAN members play a strong broker function within the network, creating partnerships between organizations and individuals within the CCE field. Many CLEAN members are professionally connected to non-members, and these individuals can serve as information spreaders and boundary spanners between different groups. For example, the survey in this study was only advertised through the CLEAN email list and CLEAN social media and communication channels, but we received almost half of the survey responses (43%) from non-CLEAN members. Thus, the CLEAN network clearly reaches beyond its membership to other CCE members. Strengthening networks like CLEAN will be important for improving and coordinating CCE efforts.</p> <p>Our study reveals how disparate the CCE field is, with low cohesion and many regional or thematic clusters. The education domain is the most cohesive network but still shows relatively low numbers compared to the possible connections across CCE professionals and organizations. This characteristic of the network shows the numerous individuals, organizations and institutions that work in CCE, making it difficult to coordinate efforts. While coordinated national CCE efforts are important, CCE is often most impactful at the state and sub-state levels, given the differences in educational policies and because of the well-established power of utilizing place-relevant, local education approaches (Bhowmik et al. [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref113">3</reflink>]). In order to leverage synergies and support the work conducted by smaller or regional programs and broaden their impact, a backbone organization like CLEAN can provide network-strengthening infrastructure to connect regional work, share ideas, and allow for developing collaborations through regular convenings, ongoing efforts, national visibility, and top-level leader involvement (DuBow et al. [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref114">16</reflink>]; Turner et al. [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref115">46</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref116">45</reflink>]). This is important for a broad field like CCE. The SNA visualizes that CLEAN is strongly connected through some core members and organizations that appear critical to the strength of the network. The members of the CLEAN Leadership Board and many active CLEAN partners and the organizations they represent are in the top 20 most central organizations across all five dimensions. The people network graphs (Figure 1) showed CLEAN members as central nodes and brokers, showcasing how important CLEAN members are for communication and connections across and out from the network and therefore strengthening the network.</p> <hd id="AN0189849513-27">Next steps – strengthening the CCE field</hd> <p>The results of this analysis can inform how to strengthen partnerships and connections across the CCE field in the U.S. Well-connected nodes can utilize those connections and work to maintain them or reach out to less-connected nodes. Less connected organizations can identify the bridges they need to establish and strengthen collaborations. Establishing connections can be done through backbone organizations such as CLEAN, and the CLEAN leadership is working to develop events and activities that will connect the network with isolated nodes and strengthen the less cohesive dimensions of CCE work. For example, a summit was organized for the past two years where working groups formed focused on DEI and workforce development (Boyd et al. [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref117">9</reflink>]).</p> <p>It is important to acknowledge that the climate change education community has struggled with funding since 2016 to secure sufficient resources to sustain and scale programs and advance new field-wide priorities like justice andequity centered climate educational work and climate focused career and technical education. The federal Tri-Agency Climate Education (TrACE) Collaboration supported sustained and robust education and communication initiatives to develop a climate-literate citizenry and skilled workforce. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) have collaborated between 2009 and 2017 to coordinate over $110 M of their investments in roughly 125 climate change education projects. Since 2017, the federal investments in climate change education have significantly decreased, reducing the ability of organizations like CLEAN to broaden CCE networks and connect across dimensions of CCE work.</p> <p>In 2022, the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) identified the need for: 'coordinated policies, equitable partnerships and integration of adaptation and mitigation within and across sectors' (IPCC [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref118">22</reflink>], p. SPM-55). This paper explored how one network of networks allows for capacity-building mobilization to foster climate action in knowledge mobilization in a more coordinated way. Coordination has been found to be a critical component of advancing climate education. In order to connect these already-existing movements around climate change and education, networking, and knotworking, a principle that describes ways in which organizations with limited central coordination, but working towards a shared goal, can better align, share, and support each other (Engeström [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref119">17</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref120">18</reflink>]), and infrastructuring, the building and sharing of tools and resources, need to be significantly enhanced to develop a climate-literate population that is better able to collaborate, develop and implement solutions efficiently, and promote values such as equity and justice.</p> <hd id="AN0189849513-28">Next steps on studying the climate education landscape</hd> <p>Future steps for this research work are to expand the SNA to describe the broader landscape of the CCE field. Many people named in the survey as partners did not take the survey themselves, so we plan to collect more data from those individuals in a follow-up survey. Using this data will allow us to iterate on network expansion and deepening connections, such as identifying nodes that connect to other related networks such as the Energy Education community.</p> <hd id="AN0189849513-29">Conclusion</hd> <p>In this study we measured and documented the social network of the field of CCE in the U.S. We defined CCE broadly and explored the characteristics of the social network across five dimensions of climate education, including (<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref121">1</reflink>) climate & energy education (formal and informal education); (<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref122">2</reflink>) climate action, climate empowerment, or community engagement; (<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref123">3</reflink>) workforce development; (<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref124">4</reflink>) diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism (DEIAR); and (<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref125">5</reflink>) climate or energy policy. The climate education network is the largest and most cohesive network across these five dimensions while the networks of other dimensions appear smaller and less cohesive. Individual CCE professionals and organizations function as information spreaders and brokers, connecting people and communication across disciplines, regions, within and out of the network. The results imply that the CLEAN network acts as a collective impact backbone organization in connecting individual CCE players and organizations in the disparate field of CCE. These findings will inform strategies to expand and strengthen the CCE network, further coordinate mutually reinforcing activities and accelerate climate action to address the challenges that communities and societies face in mitigating climate change impacts.</p> <hd id="AN0189849513-30">Acknowledgments</hd> <p>The authors would like to acknowledge others who gave feedback and supported this work, including the members of the CLEAN Network as well as the students who helped prepare and visualize the data–Karla Pineda Velez, and Paula Pérez. The University of Colorado Boulder honors and recognizes the many contributions of Indigenous peoples in our state. CU Boulder acknowledges that it is located on the traditional territories and ancestral homelands of the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Ute and many other Native American nations. Their forced removal from these territories has caused devastating and lasting impacts. While the University of Colorado Boulder can never undo or rectify the devastation wrought on Indigenous peoples, we commit to improving and enhancing engagement with Indigenous peoples and issues locally and globally.</p> <hd id="AN0189849513-31">Ethical approval and informed consent</hd> <p>All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1964 and its later amendments. This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board at the University of Colorado (no. 21-0632). Informed consent was obtained from all participants for being included in the study.</p> <hd id="AN0189849513-32">Disclosure statement</hd> <p>The authors have no relevant competing financial or non-financial interests to disclose.</p> <hd id="AN0189849513-33">Data availability statement</hd> <p>The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available due to institutional review board confidentiality requirements but de-identified data are available to view from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.</p> <ref id="AN0189849513-34"> <title> Footnotes </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref1" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2024.2408424.</bibtext> </blist> </ref> <ref id="AN0189849513-35"> <title> References </title> <blist> <bibtext> Bestelmeyer, S. V., M. M. Elser, K. V. Spellman, E. B. Sparrow, S. S. Haan-Amato, and A. Keener. 2015. 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Items – Name: Title
  Label: Title
  Group: Ti
  Data: Using Social Network Analysis to Assess Connections within Climate and Energy Education Organizations: A Case Study Conducted by the Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN)
– Name: Language
  Label: Language
  Group: Lang
  Data: English
– Name: Author
  Label: Authors
  Group: Au
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Kathryn+J%2E+Boyd%22">Kathryn J. Boyd</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7825-2713">0000-0002-7825-2713</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22K%2E+C%2E+Busch%22">K. C. Busch</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4549-5401">0000-0002-4549-5401</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Anne+U%2E+Gold%22">Anne U. Gold</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5309-0762">0000-0002-5309-0762</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Emily+G%2E+Ward%22">Emily G. Ward</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0659-6920">0000-0002-0659-6920</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Frank+Niepold%22">Frank Niepold</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1124-5359">0000-0002-1124-5359</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Kristen+Poppleton%22">Kristen Poppleton</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8719-210X">0000-0002-8719-210X</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Don+Haas%22">Don Haas</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9285-959X">0000-0001-9285-959X</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Gina+Fiorile-Desranleau%22">Gina Fiorile-Desranleau</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Deb+L%2E+Morrison%22">Deb L. Morrison</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7733-0794">0000-0001-7733-0794</externalLink>)
– Name: TitleSource
  Label: Source
  Group: Src
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Environmental+Education+Research%22"><i>Environmental Education Research</i></searchLink>. 2025 31(12):2375-2398.
– Name: Avail
  Label: Availability
  Group: Avail
  Data: Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
– Name: PeerReviewed
  Label: Peer Reviewed
  Group: SrcInfo
  Data: Y
– Name: Pages
  Label: Page Count
  Group: Src
  Data: 24
– Name: DatePubCY
  Label: Publication Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2025
– Name: SourceSuprt
  Label: Sponsoring Agency
  Group: SrcSuprt
  Data: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) (DOC)
– Name: NumberContract
  Label: Contract Number
  Group: NumCntrct
  Data: NA17OAR4320101<br />NA22OAR4320151
– Name: TypeDocument
  Label: Document Type
  Group: TypDoc
  Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Research
– Name: Subject
  Label: Descriptors
  Group: Su
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Social+Networks%22">Social Networks</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Network+Analysis%22">Network Analysis</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Climate%22">Climate</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Energy%22">Energy</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Environmental+Education%22">Environmental Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Social+Action%22">Social Action</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Empowerment%22">Empowerment</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Diversity+Equity+and+Inclusion%22">Diversity Equity and Inclusion</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Racism%22">Racism</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Policy%22">Policy</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Cooperation%22">Cooperation</searchLink>
– Name: DOI
  Label: DOI
  Group: ID
  Data: 10.1080/13504622.2024.2408424
– Name: ISSN
  Label: ISSN
  Group: ISSN
  Data: 1350-4622<br />1469-5871
– Name: Abstract
  Label: Abstract
  Group: Ab
  Data: Climate change education (CCE) plays a critical role in climate empowerment and addressing the challenge of climate change. We present results from the first social network analysis of CCE in the U.S. We surveyed CCE professionals through an established CCE network and wide dissemination from CCE professionals about their interactions with others across 5 dimensions: (1) climate and energy education; (2) climate action, climate empowerment, or community engagement; (3) workforce development in the climate and energy field; (4) diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism; and (5) climate or energy policy. The resulting network analysis shows some cohesiveness, especially for the first two dimensions; however, network cohesiveness could be improved. The findings also show the keystone organizations and brokers across the CCE field. This study provides a foundation for developing targeted strategies to strengthen CCE for improving coordinated and collaborative climate action.
– Name: AbstractInfo
  Label: Abstractor
  Group: Ab
  Data: As Provided
– Name: DateEntry
  Label: Entry Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2026
– Name: AN
  Label: Accession Number
  Group: ID
  Data: EJ1503042
PLink https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=eric&AN=EJ1503042
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  BibEntity:
    Identifiers:
      – Type: doi
        Value: 10.1080/13504622.2024.2408424
    Languages:
      – Text: English
    PhysicalDescription:
      Pagination:
        PageCount: 24
        StartPage: 2375
    Subjects:
      – SubjectFull: Social Networks
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Network Analysis
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Climate
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Energy
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Environmental Education
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Social Action
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Empowerment
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Diversity Equity and Inclusion
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Racism
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Policy
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Cooperation
        Type: general
    Titles:
      – TitleFull: Using Social Network Analysis to Assess Connections within Climate and Energy Education Organizations: A Case Study Conducted by the Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN)
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            NameFull: Kathryn J. Boyd
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            NameFull: K. C. Busch
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            NameFull: Anne U. Gold
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            NameFull: Emily G. Ward
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            NameFull: Frank Niepold
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            NameFull: Kristen Poppleton
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            NameFull: Don Haas
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            NameFull: Gina Fiorile-Desranleau
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            NameFull: Deb L. Morrison
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          Dates:
            – D: 01
              M: 01
              Type: published
              Y: 2025
          Identifiers:
            – Type: issn-print
              Value: 1350-4622
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              Value: 1469-5871
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              Value: 12
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            – TitleFull: Environmental Education Research
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