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How do we help people access the realities of climate change in a way that empowers the individual, spurs collective action, and does not freak people out?
READ - Why climate change education needs more empathy
PERUSE - Effects of Climate Change
Can Empathy Help Stop Climate Change?
Coming of Age at the End of the World
Is my vulnerability so different from your’s? A call for compassionate climate change research
Communicating Climate Change: A Guide for Educators or if you prefer - the pdf
Climate Change and Children's Mental Health
Understanding Climate Change: Grades 7-12
Tools for Teaching about Climate Change
NXTERRA - Transformative Educational Resources for Climate Change
Climate Change and Environmental Education
Think Green - Education and Climate Change
Emotional Appeal: How Art Can Inspire Action on Climate Change
Affective Arc
Affective Arc
We are all somewhere on this arc (see below). We need to be patient with ourselves as we emerge into our full knowledge of the moment. See more work on this topic here.
How to Stop Freaking Out and Do Something
How to Stop Freaking Out and Do Something
Ditch the shame - we are all victims of systems that funnel us into unsustainable consumptive habits. There is no "eco-saints vs. eco-sinners"
Focus on systems in addition to ourselves - changing our individual habits is laudable and healthy...but without systemic change we will never get where we need to be. We want everyone to be able to enjoy a more sustainable livelihood, not just the privileged few.
Join an effective group - there is power in working together! Also not everyone needs to be a leader...the world needs LOTS of really solid and talented followers. This brings us to...
Define your role - contribute what you do well to the cause(s) you care about. You don't have to become an expert in international regulatory law, global supply chains, atmospheric science and the art of protest, you can offer the skills and resources you already have, and trust that other people with complementary skills are doing what they can do, too.
Know what you are fighting for, not just what you are fighting against - holding a powerful vision of what the future could be like motivates people a lot more than scaring folks with dire predictions. It is important for our mental health and motivation to have an image in mind of our goal: a realistically good future. We need folks who can help us to reimagine our future...a different future...a better future.
-adapted from this article
Identifying effective climate change education strategies: a systematic review of the research
Identifying effective climate change education strategies: a systematic review of the research
Two themes were identified that are common to most environmental education:
focusing on personally relevant and meaningful information and
using active and engaging teaching methods.
Four themes specific to issues such as climate change were also generated:
engaging in deliberative discussions
interacting with scientists
addressing misconceptions
implementing school or community projects
Youth Demands Regarding Climate Change Education
Youth Demands Regarding Climate Change Education
Learner-centred, experiential and reflective ways of learning making climate change education more fun, solutions-based and action-oriented.
That their teachers are well supported to become ready to teach climate change. They are concerned that teachers are not confident enough and have limited resources to teach about climate change.
That schools be important learning spaces for climate change.
More say in decision-making on climate change action in school.
Contextualized climate change education through engagement with the local community.
Specificities of their geographic and demographic contexts be addressed. Youth coming from Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in particular demand more climate change education than is currently offered.
Climate change education that helps them to understand, to take better action on climate change and to recognize the human place within nature.
Diverse aspects of climate change taught across subjects in an interdisciplinary manner to address complexity and interlinkages.
Earth Warriors - some modication by me
Earth Warriors - some modication by me
From the Earth Warriors Global experience, we have found that teaching these complex topics through play and using a positive, solutions focused approach can allow children to learn about these topics in their early years without creating anxiety.
At this age, we focus on children building a bond with and love for nature, along with individual behaviour and action, which enables them to engage in systems level change later on.
General Concepts:
Age appropriate - Our curriculum is age appropriate and progressive; i.e., it builds on learning year after year.
Solutions-focused approach - Our unique solutions-focused approach gives students hope and combats eco-anxiety.
A sense of community - We connect students and teachers from all over the world so they feel united in a common mission.
Normalise talking about climate change - Introducing climate change at an early age makes it a normal topic to talk about rather than a source of anxiety.
Instill confidence - By getting appropriate knowledge, they can understand that individual actions can make a difference, which enables them to engage in systems level change later on.
Concepts: Ages 3-6
Child-centred - The curriculum encourages students to lead learning and explore their own interests.
Play-based - Students learn about critical issues using play with the help of songs and characters.
Concepts: Ages 5-11
The students can build early advocacy skills needed to tackle earth’s challenges.
The primary curriculum helps the students to connect what they learn to the wider system, thereby extending the individual action lessons they learned earlier
3P's to Environmental Education and Climate Change
3P's to Environmental Education and Climate Change
1. Pedagogy
Research has noted that information alone cannot change behaviour. Environmental identities and values, attitudes and motivations are other important factors at play (Kollmuss and Agyeman, 2002; Gatersleben, Murtagh and Abrahamse, 2014).
In addition to being aware of the effects of climate change and global warming, learners need to know what actions can be taken and how. Furthermore, having the opportunity to reflect on the impact of certain behaviours can be decisive for learners to overcome feelings of pessimism and take action (Jensen, 2002).
Along these lines, Frisk and Larson (2011) proposed four categories of knowledge:
Declarative: scientific and technical understanding of socio-ecological interactions, which reduces misconceptions and misinformation.
Procedural: an understanding of how to undertake particular actions, such as recycling or advocating for environmental protection.
Effectiveness: an understanding of the links between actions and their consequences, positive or negative.
Social: an understanding of social views and norms and their relation to proenvironmental behaviour.
Research findings suggest that learning in real-life contexts can effectively develop much more comprehensive forms of knowledge (Kollmuss and Agyeman, 2002; Hadjichambis et al., 2020).
Pedagogies such as experiential learning (e.g. project-and enquiry-based learning) and discussion-based teaching offer learners at all levels of education the opportunity to develop declarative knowledge across all curricular subjects, while exercising their agency and developing the confidence needed to work out practical, real-life change in their daily lives (Dyer and Andrews, 2011; Gibb, 2016; Paniagua and Istance, 2018; OECD, n.d.).
2. Procurement
Procurement policies and environmental education complement and reinforce each other. For instance, children’s regular contact with nature has been linked to increased environmental sensitivity (Chawla, 1998), and research has found that school designs facilitating such contact (e.g. through green playgrounds and gardens) reinforce pro-environmental behaviour (Tucker and Izadpanahi, 2017).
Similarly, involving students directly in ‘greening up’ educational facilities and operations reinforces learning outcomes. For example, engaging students in planning, purchasing for and cooking school meals allows them to work hands-on on topics such as a varied diet, food production and its environmental implications, and the importance of tackling food waste and how to do it.
Simultaneously, education systems can contribute to mitigate climate change by choosing goods, services and works that have a reduced environmental impact. There are four areas in particular where high positive impact could be achieved (European Commission, 2016):
Buildings: designing facilities that use energy and water efficiently and incorporate renewable energy systems
Food: considering the footprint of food, including production, packaging and transport, and tackling food waste.
Transport: promoting clean school transport, from procuring ‘greener’ bus fleets to promoting public transport and cycling through urban planning.
Energy-using products: procuring energy-efficient equipment, such as lighting and ICT, and limiting e-waste.
Yet, several barriers limit the adoption of ‘green’ procurement practices, including more expensive environment-friendly products, lack of information and leadership, and limited implementation capacity. A legislative framework recognising the long-term gains of green procurement and guidance and technical support for implementation are needed across all levels of governance (Sönnichsen and Clement, 2020; Cheng et al., 2018).
3. Partnerships
Synergies between education institutions and their communities – including public administration, businesses and civil society – can be achieved using more explicit and institutionalised forms of collaboration. Education-community partnerships can take multiple forms and target different goals, from enhancing the provision of extracurricular activities to unifying academic learning and community service through service-learning (OECD, 2017a; Gwilliam and Peterbauer, 2021).
Partnerships can accomplish several things at once. They can reinforce and amplify efforts related to learning practices and procurement policies, as well as strengthen social ties in communities for the benefit the environment and other purposes (Wheeler, Guevara, and Smith, 2018).
The Importance of Envisioning a Better Tomorrow
The Importance of Envisioning a Better Tomorrow
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