It will take the whole world to solve our climate crisis. Now educators have a roadmap for teaching young people about climate change and how to stop it.
Students work together on a module in the EYES curriculum. (Illustration by News Decoder)
Through storytelling, we can bring climate-related data to life. Through storytelling, young people can use their voice and the voices of those around them to turn something complex, global and overwhelming, into something local, tangible and meaningful. Through storytelling, young people can help shift narratives and bring to the forefront stories of action and of hope.
This is the idea behind the EYES climate storytelling curriculum.
Now available on the eyesonclimate.org website, the curriculum is the culmination of the Empowering Youth through Environmental Storytelling project (EYES), an Erasmus+ co-funded project by News Decoder, The Environment and Human Rights Academy (TEHRA) and Young Educators European Association.
The Climate Change 101 unit begins with the basics: human activities driving climate change and what temperature increase means for our planet. Students are tasked with producing an article that explains the topic to a younger audience.
A unit on Climate Injustice walks students through the uncomfortable reality that those causing climate change are suffering the least from its impacts. Those who have contributed the least? They tend to be in the grip of climate change.
Human stories from a man-made disaster
We know that learning about the devastations of the climate crisis can leave young people feeling anxious and angry. We also know from the teachers who piloted the EYES curriculum that it’s important to localise these topics.
So in the Climate Injustice unit, students are tasked with finding a human story: someone to illustrate climate injustice at play in their local area or region.
Hearing stories about people lets us understand the reality of an issue. Telling these stories gives young people a device for meaning-making and a platform for agency.
In our Systemic Change unit, students learn about the interconnected mechanisms that keep our economy rooted in endless economic growth and fossil fuel use. They learn about the ‘deep’ leverage points for making change — the rules, the goals and the mindset of a system. They research case studies on commodity supply chains and form their questions into a story pitch.
Our curriculum runs across school subjects for students between 15 and 18 years of age. Other units include: Tipping Points, Planetary Boundaries, Human–Nature Connection, The Carbon Budget, Doughnut Economics and a Climate Justice Case Study.
Solutions are out there.
In Systemic Solutions to the Climate Crisis, we showcase seven inspiring examples of climate solutions from around the world, from local projects such as community-owned solar panels in Mexico to the transition to renewables in Uruguay, to global movements such as recognising the rights of nature or degrowth in the Global North.
Meaningful action can happen at any scale. By engaging with these case studies, students can see that stories of just and transformative systems change happen all around them.
There are so many stories yet to be told, and that in itself is empowering.
To bolster student projects, the curriculum includes units on journalism and storytelling: The Principles of Journalism, Fact Checking and Misinformation, Interviewing and How to Write a Pitch, Write an Article and Produce a Podcast.
“Storytelling can turn young people into active users of climate knowledge, and even change makers,” said Andreea Pletea, The Environment and Human Rights Academy programme manager. “Students can even help shift dominant narratives by bringing to the surface systemic solutions to the environmental crises that also address inequalities.”
Causes and systems
Aside from storytelling, the main focus of the EYES curriculum is on systems thinking and climate injustice.
“We invite learners to go upstream to the root causes of the crises we face, and question why, despite increasing awareness, meaningful action often lags behind,” Pletea said. “Seeing the big picture particularly through systems thinking and global justice can also help young people make sense of what’s going on in their own local context.”
Pletea said that ultimately, the goal is to plant a seed. “That all of us, including young people, are more than consumers,” she said. “We are citizens with a voice and power to act and demand change, and especially when we come together.”
The EYES project itself began as a seed. TEHRA and News Decoder came together to improve climate change education through storytelling, and created a set of materials that were piloted in multiple education contexts across Europe, Africa and Latin America.
The seeds to stories
In Slovenia, Kenya and Colombia, pilot students exchanged letters on their local experiences of climate change. In Kosovo, a Roma community of young people visualised their personal experience of climate change through art.
At a summer camp in Belgium, students played climate change games, pulled apart the individual carbon footprint and were guided through a nature meditation. In Kenya, students visited the precious Karura national park and wrote stories about tipping points and the value of forests.
The feedback from students and educators, including at a three-day educators workshop in Brussels in October, helped shape and restructure the curriculum. It evolved into a set of off-the-shelf resources that can be used by multiple teachers in one school or independently by learners.
If you are an educator, we invite you to dive into climate change with your students and use the EYES curriculum. Students need to learn about the root causes of the climate crisis so that they know in which direction to head — in their future careers as much as in their personal set of values.
Through storytelling, young people can engage with the reality that is climate change, both as authors and as listeners. Storytelling is the way we understand ourselves: why we act the way we do and how together we can solve the problems that humankind has caused.
Questions to consider:
1. How can storytelling can turn someone into an active user of climate knowledge?
2. What types of climate activities did students in different countries do through the EYES lessons?
3. What stories about climate change have you found interesting to read or hear about?
Amina McCauley is News Decoder’s climate education program manager. Born in Australia and living in Denmark, Amina has a background in reporting, media analysis and teaching and a particular interest in the relationship between humans, their environment and the media.