How to Use SEL to Address Climate Anxiety

Key Points

• Educators can help students manage climate anxiety by teaching SEL skills like emotional management, social awareness, and decision-making to cope with distress and take meaningful action.
• Teachers can use tools like the Climate Emotions Wheel, collaborative projects, and local advocacy exercises to empower students and foster proactive engagement with climate issues.
• Teachers need professional development, local partnerships, and self-care resources to effectively integrate SEL into climate education and address their own climate-related emotions.

Note: This blog post is a collaboration of Shai Fuxman, Chelsey Goddard, and Rachel Pascale.

Last year, our friend Tom Roderick wrote a blog post on How SEL Supports Climate Justice Education. Our blog expands this message by providing specific strategies teachers can use in the classroom and recommendations for how we can support teachers in this endeavor. 

Ms. Clark, a second-grade teacher, asks her students to share what topics they care most about when it comes to planet Earth. As students brainstorm ideas, the recent wildfires in the Northeast U.S. emerge as the most common concern. While Ms. Clark is not surprised by these responses, she is surprised by the level of fear that students expressed, including one student shedding tears as he considers how scary this would be if it happened in their town. 

The feelings Ms. Clarks’ students expressed may lead to them experiencing “climate anxiety”—a feeling of distress or worry about the effects of climate change on the environment, human health, and the future of the world. Climate anxiety is not currently considered a mental health diagnosis, but rather a normal response to a very abnormal situation. This experience is being increasingly observed by educators and mental health researchers. For example, in a survey of 10,000 young people ages 16-25, nearly 6 in 10  reported feeling extremely worried about climate change. More than 50 percent reported the following emotions about the environment: sad, anxious, angry, powerless, helpless, and guilty.¹ A recent review of the literature found evidence of eco-anxiety emerging in children as young as 8 years old.²   

How Educators Can Help

How can educators help students cope with the strong emotions that climate change elicits and prevent—or at least help manage—climate anxiety? Educators can intentionally and systematically integrate social and emotional skills into climate change discussions. This includes helping students develop emotional management and relationship skills to cope with strong emotions and seek support from others. In addition, educators can help students develop social awareness and responsible decision-making skills that will empower them to take action to address climate change. Such actions can shift students’ locus of control, bolstering themselves against feelings of climate dread.  

Here are examples of specific classroom-based SEL practices that teachers can use in the classroom connected to climate change:   

• Emotional Management – Give students an opportunity to identify and reflect on their emotions using the Climate Emotions Wheel whenever the topic of climate change comes up. Engage students in discussions about how they can best manage these emotions in climate change conversations.  
• Relationship Skills – Ask students to develop collaborative projects, building on each student’s strengths and interests, that promote a healthy planet.  
• Social Awareness Skills – Engage students in a power-dynamic analysis to understand who influences policies and actions related to climate change at the local level, along with specific actions they can take to advocate for local change using their analysis.  
• Responsible Decision-Making – Ask students to examine how their day-to-day actions and those of people around them impact the planet, as well as how changes to their actions can promote a healthier planet.  

Supporting Teachers

It is also important to acknowledge that to incorporate SEL into climate education effectively, administrators need to provide the appropriate resources for teachers. In particular, to implement the practices above effectively, it is important to provide the following supports for teachers:  

• Professional development. Integrating SEL into climate education is unchartered territory for many educators, and they may need professional support from their peers. Consider convening a community of practice where educators can share problems of practice when it comes to integrating SEL into climate change education.  
• Connections to local supports. You’ve heard the expression “Think global, act local”? Connecting educators to local climate focused organizations (for example, Speak for the Trees) can create opportunities to link classroom learning to action.  
• Support for their own climate feelings. Adults also experience climate anxiety, so those doing the work need to remember to keep in tune with their feelings and take care of themselves. 

These steps will ensure that students are not just aware of climate change, but that they are managing their emotions productively and proactively taking care of their own well-being and that of the planet.  

References

¹ Hickman, C., Marks, E., Pihkala, P., Clayton, S., Lewandowski, R. E., Mayall, E. E., … & Van Susteren, L. (2021). Climate anxiety in children and young people and their beliefs about government responses to climate change: a global survey. The Lancet Planetary Health, 5(12), e863-e873. 

² Martin, G., Reilly, K., Everitt, H., & Gilliland, J. A. (2022). The impact of climate change awareness on children’s mental well‐being and negative emotions—a scoping review. Child and Adolescent Mental Health, 27(1), 59-72. 

The views in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of CASEL.

Shai Fuxman, a mental and behavioral health expert and senior research scientist, leads initiatives promoting the positive development of youth. He has extensive experience in SEL, school-based trauma-informed care, and substance misuse prevention. He also has expertise in program evaluation, cultural competence, and quantitative and qualitative research.

Chelsey Goddard: Chelsey Goddard, an EDC vice president and nationally recognized expert in prevention science, leads EDC’s U.S.-based health, mental health, and behavioral health work. A certified prevention specialist with a deep commitment to behavioral health equity, she has decades of experience successfully promoting the use of evidence-based, culturally appropriate behavioral health practices.

Rachel Pascale is an expert in training and instructional design, strategic communications, and product development. Her professional passion lies in understanding the intersection of pressing public health problems to craft effective solutions. She advances initiatives focused on early childhood, SEL, mental health promotion, substance misuse prevention, and out-of-school time learning.

Related Posts:

• How SEL Supports Climate Justice Education
• Community Schools: An Idea Whose Time Has Come
• How Trauma-Informed Strategies Transformed My Classroom

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