Thanks for your questions, Colleen! Each city has a very diverse set of organizations that they work with, so our activities are designed to engage participants of all ages. For example, the tabletop activities have been tested with children and adults alike, and we’ve found we only need to facilitate the conversations a little differently depending on audience.

While we’ve all collaborated all along the way, each city has developed its own flavor. It’s probably easiest to get a feel for that by going to http://cuspproject.org and then clicking on each city to see what we do, who we work with, etc.

Since I’m speaking on behalf of Pittsburgh CUSP, I’ll share some links that help understand what’s happening in our city.
You can learn about the Pittsburgh network here:
http://pittsburgh.cuspproject.org/network/
Our Pittsburgh CUSP tabletop activities are described in detail launching from this page:
http://pittsburgh.cuspproject.org/kits/
In each city, we try to gather partners together a few times a year to share these kits during major festivals or event days. We call these gatherings “climate playgrounds” or “climate cities.” Here’s what one Pittsburgh CUSP partner had to say about a CUSP Climate Playground: http://ninemilerun.org/alcosan-open-house/

I don’t want to speak on the whole project’s behalf, but the biggest surprise I’ve had in 3.5 years of speaking with probably thousands of people about climate change is that people in our city don’t seem to be grappling with the science or the cause of climate change, they just want to know how to be a part of the solution.

I would agree with Mandi’s comment about city residents, both adults and children, really looking to engage with solutions.

In addition to putting a New York frame on the CUSP tabletop activities Mandi linked to, CUSP New York has been using a digital map to engage audiences in viewing their cities in new ways.
http://cuspmap.org/

It has been interesting to see how the different types of activities work together.

Thanks so much, Brian! I think we’ve all found this approach very rewarding, too, as you can see in the video. I don’t have bigger data at hand, but I can cite a few examples from two Pittsburgh climate playgrounds: follow-up surveys that were sent about a month later to visitors to our big tent (where several activities were being presented by different organizations all under the CUSP banner) showed that about half of the respondents had at least one conversation about climate change sometime after the event. Some talked about the tabletop activities, others talked about other examples of impacts in Pittsburgh, and others about solutions they’d noticed around town because they’d experienced our activities at the event. A few of my favorite responses: “We talked about what we could be doing in our home lives and at school to decrease the effects of climate change – and how we can make more people aware of this” and “We talked about some of the activities and displays and how sometimes I feel like there is little being done and how some people find ways to blow off the urgency of climate issues. When going to events like this my faith in human kind is increased. Also, these events present the challenge that we all can do something to help.” Roughly half of the respondents also indicated that they either had or were planning to make some sort of behavior change in response to the activities they’d experienced. Additionally, responses from our project partners during event debriefs showed that the activity facilitators felt more supported and comfortable talking about climate change with the public after presenting together under the same big tent.

Brian, your focus on conversations is so important and obviously critical to the work of CUSP.

The CUSP Map has helped us capture how people are thinking about and talking about climate change after they engage in other CUSP activities. After festival events or neighborhood programs, we’ve seen people post on the map to continue the conversation about climate change in their neighborhoods.

In addition to the evaluation we’ve done, there’s lots of anecdotal evidence that indicates that people do go home and talk about climate change. For instance, in New York, we’ve run into some of the same families at different festivals over the past few years of the project, and the families will share stories about how they’ve not only gone home and talked about climate change, but they’ve taken some sort of action based on what they learned.

A big piece of the learning that we have found to be important is the learning that happens between all of us in the city specific partner networks as we identify appropriate local impacts and solutions and determine how to best represent them. We have qualitative case studies of partners in Pittsburgh changing in their comfort level in talking about climate change and even adapting their programming to include climate change topics. Lauren Allen can say more about that. Then, as partners get on board they each bring access that helps to the audience and locations you mentioned in your post.

Hi, Cullen! Interestingly enough, we find that our teaching strategies don’t have to vary too much for these different audiences. Our approach is always hands-on and fun, and it seems to be universally appealing. Adults, even senior citizens, actually tell us how refreshing it is to learn in this manner, rather than the normal lecture based style that is usually the default for adult audiences. I think it’s particularly important to keep this in mind for climate change education, because people sometimes think that they should approach climate change differently, because of what a complex, scary topic it can be. At the end of the day, however, what’s going to keep people engaged is something that they like doing, that empowers them, and that is relevant to their lives.