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Summer is a time for educators and students to recharge. For educators, this opportunity to reflect and regroup often includes planning for how to support students in the next school year. It is becoming increasingly important that this support involves helping students navigate the impacts of the climate crisis.<\/p>\n
Doom and gloom discourses encountered at school and through\u00a0multimedia exposure<\/a>\u00a0risk evoking worry, fear, anxiety and hopelessness.<\/p>\n To enhance a growing understanding of complex\u00a0climate emotions<\/a>, we think it\u2019s important to notice feelings like\u00a0climate anxiety<\/a>\u00a0and climate trauma,\u00a0among others<\/a>.<\/p>\n We, a group of teacher-educators, are concerned about how teachers address students\u2019 experiences of climate change, and the supports needed to do so well.<\/p>\n The\u00a0Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration<\/a>, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, describes trauma as \u201can event or circumstance resulting in physical harm, emotional harm, and\/or life threatening harm [and] \u2026 has lasting adverse effects on the individual\u2019s mental, physical, emotional health, social and\/or spiritual well-being.\u201d<\/p>\n Extending from this definition, we highlight that climate trauma has\u00a0long-lasting adverse effects<\/a>\u00a0which persistently impact people\u2019s overall well-being. Climate trauma can result from knowing about or experiencing climate change crises.<\/p>\n Canadian youth experience climate emotions like fear, sadness, anxiety and helplessness. In a recent\u00a0survey by Lakehead University researchers<\/a>\u00a0of 1,000 youth between the ages of 16 to 25 across Canada, almost 80 per cent of youth reported\u00a0climate change affects their mental health<\/a>.<\/p>\n We think it\u2019s critical for educators to consider\u00a0how<\/em>\u00a0young people are susceptible to symptoms of climate trauma,\u00a0including anxiety, depression, PTSD and substance use disorders<\/a>.<\/p>\n For Nathalie, one of the authors of this story, concern about symptoms of climate trauma hit home when her 10-year-old came home from school with a declaration: \u201cI am not going to have kids. I am not bringing kids into a world that is going to blow up,\u201d referring to what he was learning about the climate crisis.<\/p>\n Pessimism about having children due to the bleakness of the future is a sentiment that\u2019s becoming more common\u00a0among youth<\/a>. According to\u00a0research from the United States<\/a>, so is it among\u00a0women of colour<\/a>.<\/p>\n How teachers encounter and address narratives of trauma and associated complex feelings influences how students think about their lives and futures. Being able to shape\u00a0forward-looking stories<\/a>\u00a0amid potentially traumatic experiences is paramount.<\/p>\n When that ability is interrupted, individuals, and\/or communities are negatively affected. Lacking forward-looking stories (that is, amplifying narratives that the world is going to end) causes an understandable sense of alarm.<\/p>\n We are researchers in a preliminary qualitative study. We inquired with five Saskatchewan teachers, who have varying years of experience and school settings, to explore how some of their teaching approaches aim to hold space for complex climate emotions.<\/p>\n We met with each participant and talked about their practices teaching climate change education, how they approach associated climate emotions and how they shape possibilities for nurturing hope. We were particularly curious about how teachers and students foster hope collectively to envision possible futures and better worlds together.<\/p>\n Our initial analysis of this data points to pressing directions for teachers and\u00a0school system leaders<\/a>\u00a0as they contemplate plans for the upcoming school year.<\/p>\n Teachers we spoke with acknowledged students are being asked to cope with, and solve, a global crisis they did not create. The effects of possible annihilation weigh heavily on young people, and can affect students\u2019 capacities to learn.<\/p>\n Teachers implemented personal reflection and emotional regulation strategies as part of their trauma-sensitive climate change education practices.<\/p>\n Engaging in climate change education in ways that carefully respond to their own and students\u2019 complex climate emotions is fundamental.<\/p>\n Providing professional development about trauma-sensitive climate change education would benefit current teachers and people studying to become teachers. Possibilities for professional development include:<\/p>\n 1. The importance of learning outside:<\/strong>\u00a0Teachers said moving away from the structures and competition of indoor classroom settings was important.\u00a0Being outside<\/a>\u00a0decreases student anxiety<\/a>\u00a0and increases students\u2019\u00a0sense of community and belonging<\/a>. This also invites students to enact good relationships with the land and each other and presents opportunities for educators to ethically embed\u00a0Indigenous and place-based perspectives<\/a>\u00a0in teaching and learning.<\/p>\n 2. Interdisciplinary inquiry:<\/strong>\u00a0Teachers commented on how climate change education is often relegated to science curriculum and instead is best done experientially across all subject areas.\u00a0Interdisciplinary inquiry learning<\/a>\u00a0requires a rethinking of how to design student learning experiences, activities and assessments.<\/p>\n 3. Questioning climate action:<\/strong>\u00a0Field trips and encouraging individual actions at home (like asking students or families to reduce their carbon footprints) can be useful for inspiring hope, but these do not always address climate change itself. Professional development opportunities need to encourage teachers to engage students with the societal systems and structures that are causing the climate crisis. Strategically choosing climate actions for social and ecological justice is crucial. While students\u2019 action projects can generally make them more hopeful, this comes with a reminder: inadvertently tasking kids to \u201csave the planet<\/a>\u201d can have harmful mental-health effects. Balancing truth telling with trauma sensitivity is necessary.<\/p>\n 4. Sharing hopeful stories:<\/strong>\u00a0Rather than teaching\u00a0doomsday clock narratives<\/a>, it is\u00a0more helpful<\/a>\u00a0to share concrete examples of community-led climate\u00a0mitigation, adaptation and financing<\/a>\u00a0initiatives. Sharing\u00a0stories of hope<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0climate action<\/a>\u00a0can guide students to imagine better futures while knowing the truth about climate change and its widespread ecological, community and personal impacts.<\/p>\n We call for more complex understandings of the social, emotional, psychological and spiritual impacts of climate change education, which we have come to understand as truthful hope.\u00a0Truthful hope<\/em>\u00a0attends to both forward-looking stories and complex climate emotions in the practice of trauma-sensitive climate change education.<\/p>\n The participants in this study showed us, repeatedly, how hope is individual and collective, but also complicated. Since young people are living with ongoing climate change experiences and exposures to fear-based apocalyptic narratives,\u00a0how<\/em>\u00a0climate change education happens is central to this endeavour.<\/p>\n Our research findings to date will shape grant applications and direction for follow-up studies.<\/p>\n As we continue to analyze the qualitative data from teachers, we wonder: How might trauma-sensitive climate change education affirm\u00a0the rights of nature<\/a>\u00a0and invite students to act in solidarity with, and express gratitude for, the Earth and all inhabitants?<\/p>\n We all need to do this ongoing trauma-sensitive climate change education, together.<\/p>\nEncountering climate trauma<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Forward-looking stories<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Preliminary research insights<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Heavy weight on students<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Recommended professional development<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Future thinking<\/strong><\/h3>\n
How climate change education happens<\/h2>\n