Community Climate Opinion
The dashboard displays three community climate opinion percentages at the district level: the percentage of residents who believe citizens should do more about climate change, the percentage who support renewable energy on public land, and the percentage who think local officials should do more. These opinion measures are displayed as percentages and help indicate community support for climate action. These values are used as factors in calculating the Actionability Grade, which measures how ready a district might be for climate improvements. Knowing community sentiment can help you build support for climate action and find allies in your advocacy work.
Methodology
Climate opinion data is originally available at the county level from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. To map this data to school districts, we use a weighted aggregation approach:
- County-to-District Mapping: For districts that span multiple counties, we calculate a weighted average of county-level opinion values. The weight for each county is based on both the county's population and the proportion of schools in that county that belong to the district. Specifically, the weight is calculated as: county population × (number of district schools in county / total schools in county).
Data Sources
YPCCC - Yale Program on Climate Change Communication
Modeled public opinion estimates providing district- and county-level measures of climate attitudes, including support for renewable energy, citizen concern about climate risks, and trust in local officials.