CLARITY: From Climate Anxiety to Climate Resilience and Regeneration in Education

Description

Thanks to ERASMUS+, we are co-leading the European research and education project ‘CLARITY’: Transformative Climate Resilience Education for Children and Youth: From Climate Anxiety to Resilience, Creativity and Regeneration.

Climate change education in schools and universities tends to focus on environmental facts, whilst little room is given to inner dimensions of change and to collective ation. The emotional and mental wellbeing of students, as well as the values, skills and mindsets that are needed for addressing societal challenges and fostering transformation are hardly considered. Consequently, children and youth are increasingly experiencing climate anxiety, associated overwhelm and denial.

CLARITY aims to address these challenges by (1) enhancing educators’ skills for dealing with climate anxiety and nurturing inner resilience of learners, and (2) supporting more integrative approaches that link the inner and outer dimensions of transformation.

Based on the GreenComp Framework adapted for children and youth education and an inter- and transdisciplinary co-creation process, we will develop an innovative educators toolbox (that links psychological, artistic/creative and ecological approaches) and train educators in implementation. Through an online resource hub, and our online community platform, we will support related knowledge exchange and regenerative shifts in underlying paradigms and approaches.

We have already released a competence framework and a policy-brief advocating for transformative climate change education for children and youth.

As a result of the project, children and youth educators will be better equipped to provide social, emotional, ethical and trauma-informed education that supports climate resilience across individual, collective, and system levels. This does not only involve enhancing the emotional and mental wellbeing of children and youth and building their capacities as transformative change-agents. It also involves creating a field of change through more regenerative cultures and communities of practice needed to address climate change and other societal crises in the long run.

If this is your topic, or if you would like to recommend research, existing projects or resources for us to learn from, please reach out. We are also looking for educators who would like to engage in our co-creation process, and join future teachers trainings.