A new report from This Is Planet Ed, a project of the Aspen Institute, describes (PDF) a survey of American teenagers undertaken “to better understand their awareness of climate change, its impacts, and its solution.”
“Teens have a shaky understanding of the causes of climate change and the strong scientific consensus around the fact that human activity is driving up global temperatures,” according to a story about the report in Education Week (August 28, 2025).
Asked “What is the biggest contributor to climate change” and presented with a range of options, 54 percent of respondents selected “Emissions from human activity have increased the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.”
Asked “What percentage of climate scientists agree that human activity is causing climate change,” 42 percent of respondents selected “Nearly 100%” — the correct answer — while 52 percent selected “About 50%” and 6 percent selected “At Most 10%.”
The report also examined climate change in state education standards, noting that as of 2025, “32 states and DC require teaching human-caused climate change in science classes … [and] 15 require teaching climate change but not necessarily human-caused.”
The survey was conducted online between January 13 and January 17, 2025, among 1017 teenagers (13-19 years old) from across the United States; details of selection, weighting, and margin of error were not provided in the report.