Critical Thinking and Psychorhetoric for promoting environmental awareness.

The objective of our intervention, as part of the EduS4EL Project, is that of improving Environmental Literacy among secondary school students through innovative strategies and methodologies. The novelty of the project is to promote the overcoming of difficulties related to the consideration of climate change through the approach of cognitive and communication psychology (increase awareness of cognitive and communication biases, develop an adequate perception of risk, and of critical thinking with respect to the polarized arguments present in the public debate). In particular, the development of critical thinking and psychorhetorical analysis of fallacious arguments appears to be crucial to promote a better understanding of climate change and other environmental issues, as these disciplines aim at render people more adept at uncovering fallacies and rhetorical tricks that can be implicit in communication, help formulating correct opinions, based on reliable data and sources, and developing deliberative skills. Our intervention, composed of three main sections (education on the key topics of climate change, Critical Thinking and Psychorhetorical intervention, Debate), was carried out in an Italian high school with students of 11th and 12th grade, which performance was compared throughout a questionnaire, with a control group. Critical thinking was measured through the correct evaluation of syllogisms and selection tasks while psychorhetorical skills through the rejection of the implicit denialist message contained in newspaper articles. Overall, our results evidence a better performance by participants who attended the intervention than that of those who did not, suggesting that our intervention has been successful.