Ever-increasing global warming has created a societal imperative to reach and engage youth, whose futures are at risk. In this paper, we evaluate the climate science knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, behavior and communication impact of an entertainmenteducation high school assembly program in a random sample of 49 schools (from population of 779 that received the intervention) and a panel of 1,241 students. Pre-and post-assembly surveys composed of questions from the Global Warming's Six Americas segmentation and intervention-specific measures were administered in classrooms. We demonstrate that exposure to climate science in an engaging edutainment format changes youths' knowledge, beliefs, involvement, and behavior positively and moves them to audience segments that are more engaged in the issue. The net impact of scaled, multi-sensory, captivating programs for youth could be a population shift in science-informed engagement in the issue of climate change. In addition, such programs can inspire youth for deeper engagement in school programs, personal action, and political and consumer advocacy.

Previous attempts to reduce the effects of television advertising on children's purchase requests have had little success. Therefore, we tested the effects of a classroom intervention to reduce television, videotape, and video game use on children's toy purchase requests, in a school-based randomized controlled trial. Third- and fourth-grade children (mean age, 8.9 years) in two sociodemographically and scholastically matched public elementary schools were eligible to participate. Children in one randomly selected elementary school received an 18-lesson, 6-month classroom curriculum to reduce television, videotape, and video game use. In both schools, in September (before intervention) and April (after intervention) of a single school year, children and parents reported children's prior week's purchase requests for toys seen on television. After intervention, children in the intervention school were significantly less likely to report toy purchase requests than children in the control school, with adjusting for baseline purchase requests, gender, and age (odds ratio, 0.29; 95% confidence interval, 0.12-0.69). Among intervention school children, reductions in self-reported purchase requests were also associated with reductions in television viewing. There was no significant difference between schools in parent reports of children's requests for toy purchases. These findings suggest that reducing television viewing is a promising approach to reducing the influences of advertising on children's behavior.