Babson College
AC-5: Sustainability Literacy Assessment

A literacy assessment was conducted in Spring of 2024. The results have not yet been analyzed, however, the format appears below.

At Babson, we teach a socioecological systems course, which is co-taught by two professors (one from science and one from economics, history, arts and humanities or marketing). This semester, we are offering 8 sections of this course, 1 of which is Behavior Systems, 3 of which are Urban Systems, 1 of which is Prairie Systems, and 3 of which are Disasters and Resilience Systems. In this assessment, we have developed a common exam question that we plan to administer on each final exam. Our goal is to determine how well students are able to perform systems thinking, identify feedback loops, and identify decision making leverage points. This study will examine how different course contents (behavior, urban, prairie, and disasters and resilience) achieve systems thinking skills.  

INSTRUCTIONS

Please read the following article and use our semester long exploration of systems thinking to answer the questions that appear below. Note, this article is a modified version of “Rust Belt and Midwest cities need to plan on many fronts for new ‘climate migrants’” written by Maria Rose of The Allegheny Front.

ARTICLE

More than 15 million people worldwide have been displaced by weather disasters every year in the last decade. In 2018, more than a million Americans were forced to leave their homes because of natural disasters like hurricanes, floods, and wildfires, all of which are expected to get worse and more frequent in the future due to climate change. In addition, people are being displaced because of more gradual climate change impacts, like sea level rise, excessive heat, or extended drought and lack of access to fresh water, which are predicted to displace more than 13 million Americans by the end of the century, according to a University of Georgia study published in Nature Climate Change.

People moving for these reasons is what some experts are calling climate migration. Though there is no formally recognized definition, climate migration broadly refers to people who have been displaced, permanently or temporarily, from their homes due to natural disasters exacerbated by climate change or due to adverse long-term impacts of climate change. Dr. Jack DeWaard, from the University of Minnesota’s Population Center, said that in the situations that are often more permanent, “you can’t necessarily tease out the role of climate and environment from the economic livelihoods that are giving people pause about whether they might stay in an area, how long they would stay in that area, or whether they would migrate away. What we also know from the literature is that when people do migrate, they utilize migration as an adaptation option often of last resort,” DeWaard said.

Understanding how people move after natural disasters can help cities better prepare for new populations. A new study in the journal PLOS ONE predicts that most future American climate migrants will move just inland of hard-hit communities, staying close to friends and family. But others will relocate further from the coast to the regions around the Great Lakes and the Midwest. Even though this area will experience extreme storms, flooding, and temperature rise, it may be more tolerable than the South or along the coasts. Further, it boasts freshwater access and infrastructure meant for larger populations before manufacturing declined in the 1970s.

Some cities in the region are already positioning themselves as climate destinations. Byron Brown, Mayor of Buffalo, New York, said in his 2019 State of the City Address that Buffalo has “a tremendous opportunity, as our planet changes. Based on scientific research, we know that Buffalo will be a climate refuge city, for centuries to come.” And Cincinnati stated in its 2018 Green Cincinnati Plan that they intend to promote the city as a climate haven for people and businesses, in hopes of growing their economy. Cincinnati resilience officer Oliver Kroner said this idea was inspired by the 2,000 people who moved into the city after Hurricane Katrina. He said the city, so far, has focused on greening infrastructure and restoring empty housing stock. “Largely, we believe that it will really be a test of infrastructure that will be most challenging,” Kroner said. “And if we provide a solid foundation for people to live here and move here, we’ll be better prepared, to handle the influx.”

Inland cities, Ervin notes, are in a very different position from coastal communities, which face immediate dislocation. “Inland cities are thinking very much in terms of how are we going to absorb a growing population? They’re different questions and they require different policy responses.” Many of the actions Pittsburgh is taking to address climate change would also help handle an increase in new residents. The city’s climate plan addresses obvious issues like energy efficiency, encouraging the use of public transportation and renewable energy, but also things like fixing vacant properties and increasing demand for and access to local food.

But Kroner said implementing social initiatives necessary for in-migration has proven to be hard for governments when it comes to climate policy. “I think the infrastructure piece is better understood and is being addressed in a more meaningful way right now because that is typically where governments focus and what we can control to some degree. But cities need comprehensive social support systems that go beyond environmental or climate actions, said DeWaard, especially because migration won’t be fair for everyone. Typically, people who can afford to move will move. The social component is harder to understand, harder to manage, and more unique to the climate migrants and local residents: what does each city currently do well, what needs improvement, and how will an increase in population stress each system?

“If everybody with means leaves an area and they all migrate to Duluth, Minnesota or Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, maybe what we’re going to start seeing are housing costs going up,” said DeWaard. “Maybe what we might see is changes in cultural identity and inequality within that specific place, especially if those who are migrating in are very different culturally or socioeconomically, from the folks who are already there.” When people with means leave a climate-hit area, it leaves behind poorer families, concentrating poverty in vulnerable communities. Jobs that depend on climate (like agriculture) are lost, housing might be damaged, and property values decrease markedly.

Working conditions in those locations also change. Farm workers and other professionals who predominantly work outside encounter elevated temperatures, poor air quality, and a lack of shade at their jobs and frequently do not have air conditioning or live in crowded homes. This affects workers’ fitness levels and ability to do their jobs because they experience an increased risk of heat stroke, dehydration, or respiratory issues. For agricultural workers, these impacts could limit their wages or increase the hours that workers must be in the fields. These impacts have different effects on different parts of the country. During a recent growing season across the U.S., wheat farmers in Kanas experienced low yield because of drought that stunted growth and excessive rain that complicated harvests. Cattle farmers in Nebraska saw cattle die due to high humidity and temperatures and farmers in California experienced years long drought followed by so much rain and snow melt that their cropland was flooded. For the consumer, the supply of food and its price could change – access to grocery stores and farmers markets could be stressed.

On the flip side, lower income families who decide to resettle may need additional support in their new homes. DeWaard said that social programs to help people adapt can ease the strain on cities like helping people find housing, jobs, or even healthcare. Otherwise, inequality may get worse as climate migration increases, “because disasters are inherently social phenomenon, that require us to think about place vulnerability and social vulnerability,” he said. “And indeed, there has been growing calls to embed the social sciences and natural sciences in climate policy decisions.”

QUESTIONS

a.) Please describe how migration caused by climate change clearly disrupts one socio-ecological relationship. Provide one specific example from the article to describe a feedback loop associated with climate migration. Your total response to this question should be 6-8 sentences/bullet points.

b.) Who and where might be most vulnerable to climate migration? Identify a leverage point or policy change that could reduce the impact of climate migration on these vulnerable populations. Your total response to this question should be 6-8 sentences/ bullet points.

The results have not yet been analyzed.

The collective Socioecological Systems Staff developed a common exam question across all SES courses in the Spring of 2024. The exam question included a 2 page story about climate migration with two follow up questions. Since this question was part of a final exam, it served as an excellent measure of sustainability literacy. The results have not yet been analyzed.

A representative sample of responses from each section of each course will be evaluated to determine the % of responses that exceed, meet, and do not meet expectations. A similar survey will be conducted in Spring 2025 to determine how recent curriculum changes impact the initial % of respondents in each category. 

We will analyze a representative sample (~20%) of 300 responses to the common exam question in Spring 2024. Since all students take the SES course during their time at Babson, this representative sample of a semester reflects the entirety of the graduating Babson population.