SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Educational Psychology
The Effect of School Science Education on Students' Climate Literacy: A Three-Level Meta-Analysis
1. Hubei University of Technology, Wuhan, China
2. Shanxi University, Taiyuan, China
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Abstract
Climate literacy is fundamental to addressing climate change. Science education has unique value in shaping students’ climate literacy. Given the divergence among single studies, it is essential to synthesize findings from multiple empirical investigations to comprehensively explore the impact of science education on students’ climate literacy, yet such research remains scarce. This study employed a three-level meta-analysis to examine the effectiveness of school science education in fostering students’ climate literacy. Thirty-three experimental and quasi-experimental studies from five continents (N = 8,044) were included. The results indicated that school science education has a significantly positive and large effect on students’ climate literacy (g = 1.01, 95% CI [0.70, 1.33], p < .001, k = 60). Dimensional analyses showed significant positive effects on climate change cognition (g = 1.08, 95% CI [0.71, 1.45], p < .001, k = 46) and attitudes (g = 0.88, 95% CI [0.17, 1.60], p < .05, k = 11), with a larger effect for cognition. The effect on climate action was not statistically significant (g = 0.34, 95% CI [−0.63, 1.32], p > .05, k = 3). Discipline significantly moderated the effect of science education on climate literacy, whereas instructional strategy, educational level, and intervention duration did not. Given the considerable heterogeneity among the included studies and the limited number of studies and effect sizes in some groups, these findings should be interpreted with caution.
Summary
Keywords
Climate Change, Climate literacy, environmental psychology, Meta-analysis, science education
Received
17 December 2025
Accepted
19 February 2026
Copyright
© 2026 Chen, Ren and Yang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Yanru Yang
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