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Dumfries Climate Kitchen

SEPTEMBER 2024: How Do We Speak to Children About the Climate Crisis?

The Stove Café, Midsteeple Quarter, High Street, Dumfries
Friday 20th September

Whether it is in schools, youth groups, or in family situations, what are the best ways of talking to children about what is going on?

Our guide for this event was Leah Belford, a biology teacher at Wallace Hall Academy. Leah talked about her work putting Climate on the school agenda, from
policy documents through to developing forest school activities. Leah identified the importance of positive practical activities that children can get involved in – preferably outdoors – to help them build real knowledge and connection with the world around them. For example, she has helped develop a school orchard that the pupils contribute towards and work with a local company to process the apples into juice.

Her take away tips for talking to children about the Climate Crisis are:

  • Use age-appropriate language. Tailor your conversation to their age.
  • Focus on facts. Give clear and factual explanations without overwhelming them.
  • Encourage questions. All them to ask what they want and express their feelings. This can help them process the information better.
  • Discuss solutions. Talk about what can be done! Emphasise what individuals and communities are already doing and can build on.
  • Lead by example. Share your own sustainability practices and support them to be involved.
  • Make it engaging. Use stories, videos or activities that relate to nature to make the conversation more engaging.

On our tables we were invited to think about how we would talk with different children of different ages – and were invited to think about how we would respond to a range of real quotes from children Leah has worked with talking about the Climate Crisis. Leah also placed importance on the Dumfries and Galloway Learning for Sustainability Partnership Group as a platform for knowledge and practice exchange and encouragement. A key idea is the importance of not just thinking about school children as future employees but also future citizens.

A few of the resources that she recommended were:

Lusi Alderslowe – a local permaculture practitioner and tutor – shared her reflections on not overwhelming children. She asked everyone to think about how they felt when they first understood the Climate Crisis. In a recent article she wrote : “Children need to understand how human activities are affecting it, what the solutions are, how they can help, and the systemic changes which need to happen. However, children are young, are known to be cognitively different to adults, can be vulnerable to anxiety, depression, and these issues can be too big for them to deal with.”

Lusi has led an international permaculture project, supported by Erasmus+ to understand better how to involve children in permaculture. She has brought some of the results together in the Children in Permaculture Manual. Quoting David Sobel, “if we want children to flourish, to be truly empowered we must first allow them to love the Earth before we ask them to save it.”

Finally, we heard from Dr Marian Krawczyk – a lecturer in Health and Social Policy at the University of Glasgow. She has been conducting research around the emotions around the Climate Crisis. The aim of the research project is to “engage with children and young people’s environmental emotions as a powerful source for developing long-term resilience and ability to craft sustainable futures”. She also hopes her experience and insight within End of Life studies can help illuminate some of the big emotions at play when talking about the Climate Crisis. She highlighted the value in being able to build our abilities to honour the difficult emotions that come up and not run away from them or try to bury them in other more ‘positive’ emotions. She was keen to get in contact with anyone interested in being interviewed or involved in this project as it develops. Her contact details can be found at https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/ses/staff/mariankrawczyk/#biography,researchinterests

We’d love to hear how you get on with the suggestions and resources recommended during our September event – please get in touch!

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