Taking time to listen and learn: a museum partnership designed to engage rural audiences in climate change conversations

Through the Climate and Rural Systems Partnership (CRSP), Carnegie Museum of Natural History partnered with a rural conservation district and learning researchers at University of Pittsburgh to build a learning network with two regional hubs. Each hub invited community organizations to join and work together to develop strategies to support productive, science- and community-based dialogue among network members and with public audiences. Together, we worked in a Research-Practice Partnership (RPP) to enhance climate literacy through a network that bridged urban and rural professionals. This peer-review research publication shares a case study of how the project team built upon lessons learned from prior work, and used asset-based strategies to learn from the rural community. We present a survey of rural climate beliefs, interests and understandings that was used to surface starting points for our collective design work. The network’s first public-facing event helped the group to check our assumptions about a perceived “spiral of silence” that can shut down discourse and engagement around contentious issues, and provided opportunities to gauge the community’s interest in locally relevant climate change conversations. We describe how museums can address power and position to build trust with rural partners and audiences, and to extend their impact on urgent socio-scientific issues.