Teach Climate Tips

December 05, 2022

Print This Article Share it With Friends

(Climate Generation) ... Check out Climate Generation’s Teach Climate Network Workshop series to watch recordings or attend live. For a deeper dive, dig into asynchronous professional learning opportunities with our new Becoming a Climate Change Educator Toolkit. For even more bite size learning opportunities, read on for our tips to address common barriers educators face when teaching climate change.

...

Make climate change relatable to students. Connecting students with information on how climate change impacts their own counties and states is key to helping them identify personally with climate change issues and narrow down intervention points!

Address disinformation about climate change. Visit Skeptical Science for ideas and activities you can do with your students to help them spot the fallacies! There’s also an app called Cranky Uncle on how to disarm climate deniers.

Support students feeling climate anxiety and grief. Even when we focus on solutions and hope, fear, grief, and sadness are normal responses to learning about or experiencing climate change impacts. When you see a student in distress, check in with them to understand what they’re feeling and offer support. The Climate Mental Health Network shares tips and videos to help build emotional resilience.

Connect with your community. There are policy makers, scientists, Indigenous leaders, resource managers, and many others working daily to address the climate crisis in your community. Your class can help them! Your students’ families and guardians may have great ideas of community members who are looking to hear youth voices or could use support with data collection or project planning.

Change your communication style for better climate conversations. We can galvanize pro-climate behavior and avoid denial and despair by personalizing climate change, moving from disaster stories to success stories, simplifying behavior changes, and more, according to psychologist and economist Per Espen Stoknes.

Overcome barriers to elementary climate change education. Early childhood educators often worry that climate change is too big and scary a topic for their students, but there are ways to discuss climate change and engage students in climate action in developmentally appropriate ways! Gain confidence in teaching climate change at the elementary level with tips from this CLEAN webinar.