Extension Climate/Extreme Weather Programming

Sustainable You! 4-H Camp Participants, Park City UT. Photo credit: Roslynn McCann. The Excel® database was posted on-line via a public Google® Docs page and we sent the link to multiple sources to review, edit, ground-truth, and add to the preliminary data we had collected. Among the many networks we sent the link included Extension Directors via eXtension, the new National Extension Climate Initiative (NECI) 3 member map and listserv that contains over 200 subscribers, and the listservs and networks that the authors maintain and subscribe to. We also personally contacted individuals we knew had C/EW programs to further ground-truth the data. The goal was to actively promote input on the data and create the most comprehensive dataset on the topics to date. Qualitative Interviews with ‘Early Adopters’ Our team conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews with 16 purposefully selected Extension professionals who had direct experience and/or knowledge of C/EW programming. The study design, semi-structured interview guide, informed consent, and participant contacts were all vetted by the study’s authors and were approved by the Utah State University Institutional Review Board (IRB). Study participants were intentionally chosen to meet the following criteria: 1) direct experience and/or knowledge of C/EW programming, 2) early adopters in developing and offering C/EW Extension programming, and 3) has or previously had a percentage of their role statement committed to Extension outreach. An initial list of respondents were identified via the NECI listserv as well as requests from our networks. Additional participants were included through snowball sampling until a point of saturation - 16 participants representing 11 states and LGUs from a range of geographic areas across the U.S. - had been reached. The final sample of C/EW ‘Early Adopter’ interviewees has over 210 years of collective professional experience working with Extension (average of 13 years). Interviews were scheduled and conducted via the Zoom® software platform with a lead interviewer and note taker. Respondents were assured that all identifying information would be removed and the data would be anonymous and confidential. Interview questions involved items on experience with C/EW programming, successes and opportunities, challenges, evaluation, and partnerships. The structured but

3 National Extension Climate Initiative: https://nationalextensionclimateinitiative.net/

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