Informing parents of the risks posed by climate change may be best done through their children, a new study suggests.
Researchers from the North Carolina State University (NCSU) designed a curriculum that was focused on raising climate change awareness in parents through middle school children.
They found this to be an effective way of creating higher levels of concern in the parents.
Male parents and conservative parents, who began least interested in climate change effects, showed the strongest change in attitude.
Daughters were shown to be the most influential with their parents, the study found.
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Reaching adults with messages of climate change may be best done through their children, a new report suggests. Daughters were shown to be the most influential with their parents, the study found. (stock image)
The latest study tested the effectiveness a specially designed curriculum for 10-14-year-olds in maximising what scientists called child-to-parent 'intergenerational transfer' on climate change.
The term is described by the authors of the study as 'the transfer of knowledge, attitudes or behaviours from children to parents.
Both the children and parents in the study were asked to rate their worry about climate change using a scale. Zero represented a neutral attitude whereas a minus score indicated no reason to worry.
A score of one to five represented increasing concerns - with five being the highest level.
They found that children who participated in the curriculum showed larger increases in climate change concern than students in the control group.
They found that changes in parents' climate change concern were strongest among the groups that were usually the most resistant to messages about the detrimental outcomes climate change.
The biggest changes in attitudes were reported in conservative fathers who began by showing low concern and high scepticism around climate change.
Daughters were also more effective than sons in changing climate change ideology among their parents.
Overall, the researchers found their method was a promising way for overcoming barriers to understanding climate change in adults that broke free of economic backgrounds and political beliefs.
Researchers from the North Carolina State University (NCSU) designed a curriculum that was designed to
