Climate Mental Health: Facilitating Discussions and Creating Solidarity

Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Science Education and Outreach

Talking about emotions related to climate change can help youth to process emotions, move on, and develop trust and connection with others through shared solidarity. In this lesson, students will discuss their thoughts and feelings about climate change with others, and learn how to reframe some of their thoughts. Consider teaching the Emotions Wheel and Acitive Listening activities before this in order to help students develop language and discussion skills.

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Notes from our reviewers

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Creating the "safe space" this resource asks for can sometimes be a challenge. Consider what the classroom norms are for communication and discussion before this activity and what is needed to ensure success. This lesson may require skillful classroom management to enable students to express vulnerability.
Facilitating discussions and creating solidarity are useful skills for students to develop for both social situations and multiple types of work. This lesson does not include background on what climate change is, which is necessary knowledge for this lesson. Teachers can find this background in the CLEAN teaching climate pages- [link https://cleanet.org/clean/literacy/climate/index.html] Passed initial science review - expert science review pending.
After ensuring students are ready to engage in a potentially vulnerable discussion, allow time for sharing to occur organically. This may mean that the lesson will take additional time or require some processing after students share. Consider teaching the Emotions Wheel and Active Listening activities from this lesson set before this lesson.