Midst of Environmental Doom and Gloom, Kelsey finds that hope is an important mech- anism to move from empowerment to agen- cy. She reminds us that hope can be taught. Through her interviews, Kelsey reveals that sources of hope for people can be found in small actions of other people and individual hope can build and sustain larger, collec- tive hope. She urges educators to nurture communities as sites of collective hope and reminds us that emotions are contagious. When people have a sense of belonging to their communities they become sources of motivation, support and resilience. Schools are natural sites of community and are well- positioned to be a positive source for hope for many because mitigating climate change will require us to work together.
TEACHING HOPE
“THE FIELD OF CLIMATE CHANGE EDUCATION HAS MORE RECENTLY BEEN DRAWING ON STRATEGIES FROM HOLOCAUST AND GENOCIDE EDUCATION, WHICH ALSO CONSIDER THE SOCIO-EMOTIONAL CONTEXT ESSENTIAL IN ENGAGING LEARNERS WITH DIFFICULT CON- TENT, RATHER THAN PUSHING THEM AWAY.”
trajectory. Rather the carbon dioxide (CO2 )
emissions have more than doubled since the 60s according to the Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research. David Su- zuki describes the movement, despite local- ized successes, ultimately as a failure. As an 83-year-old man, Suzuki says if he knew how long it would take us to take action, he would have gone into education much earlier.
MOVING FROM EMPOWERMENT TO AGENCY
We know that higher levels of scientific knowledge do not automatically mean in- creased climate action. Yet we are still largely operating under the assumption that educat- ing people on the science of climate change will empower them to take action. The field of Climate Change Education has more recently been drawing on strategies from Holocaust and genocide education, which also consider the socio-emotional context essential in engaging learners with difficult content, rather than pushing them away. Dr. Elin Kelsey has been working on the is- sue of hope and the environment for the past decade, which inspired her viral hashtag #OceanOptimism. Her research in palliative care, oncology and grief work, where con- tent is emotionally difficult and hopelessness is more openly discussed, provides vital in- sights. In Propagating Collective Hope in the
30 ETFO VOICE | SPRING 2020
In order for climate change education to be most effective, it must reduce feelings of helplessness. In 2016, UNESCO began the Getting Climate-Ready pilot project, an initiative in 25 countries to help targeted schools engage in climate actions to reduce the effects of climate change. The project reached approximately 200,000 students and 12,000 teachers worldwide. Evaluated in a Canadian context, the following list of good practices for climate change education was developed.
Good climate change education approaches and practices:
• Providing students with opportunities to design and implement climate action projects
• Ensuring the information presented in class is personally relevant and meaningful
• Learning extended to outside the classroom through community partner- ships (e.g., connect with your local green organizations, municipalities, conserva- tion authorities to open up the conversa- tion on how you can support and build a reciprocal relationship)
• Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) integrated across the curriculum; all classes must include ESD at some point (e.g., find the growing bank of resources at the
Worldslargestlesson.globalgoals. org for all 17 goals, for all ages happening globally)
• Students at all levels learn about Indig- enous cultures, the environment and climate change
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