With climate change being among today’s most prominent topics on social media, kids these days get most of the information about the crisis from the internet, which is typically overflowed with distressing environmental news. This can not only give them a sense of powerlessness but also have an impact on their mental health.
Recognizing the importance of properly educating children about this urgent global challenge, starting this year, New Zealand will add climate education to their school curriculum. Schools will have access to materials about the climate crisis written by the country’s leading science agencies – including tools for students to plan their activism, and to process their feelings of “eco-anxiety” over global heating.
The didactic material will include a “feelings thermometer” to help pupils track their emotions, learn how to change defeatist self-talk, and consider how their feelings could generate action and response. Another tool in the curriculum helps students create and carry out an action plan on a particular environmental issue – such as creating an edible garden.
The scheme will put New Zealand at the forefront of climate change education worldwide, alongside Italy which will this year become the first country in the world to make sustainability and the climate crisis compulsory for students.
