This article explores changes of environmental values and beliefs among secondary school business and economics students regarding government and market solutions to climate change. The quantitative study is longitudinal and a survey was administrated to students at two occasions including 212 participants in the first measurement. Results show a small significant increase in importance for altruistic, biospheric and egoistic value orientations at average. At an individual level, there are substantial movements over time. Nearly two-thirds of the students changed the strength of their value orientations over time. Taxes and legislation were regarded as the most effective solutions to climate change, however there was a decrease in seeing market prices as important mechanisms for change. Analysis suggested no direct relationship between change in environmental value orientation and change in norms. However indirect associations were mediated by changing beliefs in the efficacy of education and information and the efficacy of tax policies. For example, students who became more egoistic and more convinced about the efficacy of tax were less likely than others to be willing to take personal actions.

This study focuses on epistemic beliefs in relation to actions to mitigate climate change, and we investigate students’ beliefs and their support for societal actions and personal norms that direct individuals’ pro-environmental behaviour. Students’ conceptions of science - epistemic beliefs - concerns the way they regard scientific knowledge as fixed and certain, or evolving and uncertain. The study used a pen and pencil measurement distributed to the same students at two occasions, the first year’s (T1) measurement included 212 students in business and economics education, aged 17, and this was repeated a year later, in their final year. Changes are analysed through paired sample t-test, and partial correlation analyses were used to explore relations. Results show a weak and positive relation between the belief in certainty of knowledge and a norm of supporting taxes for solving climate change. At T2, a weak and negative relation was shown between recognising ‘science as having one clear-cut answer’ and ascribing solutions to climate change to both business and government. The results could suggest that a view of science as certain can influence the willingness to pay and contribute to solutions, and not ascribing government a responsibility. This however seems contradictory, as government are the initiators of policies such as CO2 taxes. Further research is needed to explain how epistemic beliefs can impact on norms for actions.

Contemporary challenges demand deeper thinking from students and the public, including those challenges associated with food, energy, and water (FEW) security. For example, society’s increasing demand for energy contributes to human-induced climate change (IPCC 2015). Phenomena specifically related to FEW security are particularly relevant for investigating how epistemic cognition factors into learning, and the purpose of this symposium is to feature recent educational research studies examining learners’ epistemic cognition—including beliefs, attitudes, emotions, judgments, and behaviors—related to FEW phenomena. The research featured in this symposium will suggest preliminary implications for epistemic cognition learning and teaching to strengthen students’ and the public’s epistemic cognition and capacity to deal with current and future FEW challenges.

This quantitative study explores changes in relations between students’ epistemological be-liefs regarding certainty of knowledge and global warming scepticism. It also explores whether different dimensions of knowledge certainty predict students’ understandings of large-scale solutions to climate change as in education/information, market prices or tax and legislation. The study is longitudinal and a paper and pen questionnaire was distributed to business and economics students at two occasions. The first year’s measurement included 212 participants, aged 17 years. Measurement was repeated a year later when students were in their final year of education. Factor analysis and linear regression analyses were used to generate underlying dimensions of beliefs and to predict relations between epistemological beliefs and conceptions of solutions to climate change. Changes are analysed through paired sample t-test. Results show, firstly, that almost all students acknowledged climate change and the study found no significant change over time at group level. Furthermore, preliminary results generated a three-factor solution regarding epistemological beliefs of knowledge certainty; science has clear-cut answers, science can be revised, and science is universal truth. Two solutions to climate change were significantly predicted by an absolute belief ‘science has clear-cut answers’: at first measurement is was education/information and at the second time, it was market prices. The epistemological dimension of ‘science can be revised’ predicted a belief that taxes are efficient solutions.

Purpose: To explore changes in upper secondary students´ conceptions of environmental issues in how prices are determined and how they should be determined. Design:The study uses an ’alternative frameworks’ conceptual change approach to examine change in the conceptions of fifteen business and economic students. Students were asked about the prices of familiar products and asked to explain prices for eco-friendly and eco-unfriendly products. A first interview was conducted in the second year of education and the second interview a year later when students were 18 years old and in the final year of schooling. Interviews were carried out out by a researcher independent from the schools and carried out in schools. Findings: Identifies the fragmentary nature of students´ every-day thinking in relation to productivity, consumer preference and negative externalities. Results show characteristics of partial conceptions, which are considered as students´ conceptions in a process of change towards a more scientific understanding of relationships between price and environmental impacts. Practical implications: The study clarifies conceptions, which students bring to the classroom and the directions thatdevelopment in understanding may take. The study should help teachers to design effective strategies to support students’ learning.