Cultivating Climate Change and Environmental Empathy in Elementary Classrooms Through Storytelling (Poster 9)

• In Event: Attending to Climate and Environmental Hope, Despair, and Repair Through Storytelling

Abstract

Objectives
Environmental empathy is a complicated construct that takes time and multiple interactions (Beattie et al., 2021; Young et al., 2018). Low empathy towards humans and non-humans can be related to environmental behavior and attitudes such as denial of climate change (Jylhä & Akrami, 2017). Participatory ecological storytelling can foster environmental empathy for the planet by encouraging imaginative engagement with various planetary characters' perspectives, emotions, and experiences (Talgorn & Ullerup, 2023).

Theoretical framework
Storytelling is used as an inquiry tool in design research to provide access to rich and nuanced information about users’ emotions and frames that may not be available via other research means (McCall et al., 2021). At the heart of the story is a methodical explanation and clear message that can be used to explain the mechanics of climate change or build empathy for the planet (Talgorn & Ullerup, 2023) and non-humans (Sands, 2019). Therefore, climate change story-telling can be a powerful method in education. This paper highlights the work stories do for understanding how elementary teachers can use them as a medium for climate justice education and helping students build climate change and environmental empathy towards monarch butterflies. This study's research question is: What are two elementary teachers' perceptions of the expansive possibilities of using storytelling for students to develop climate change and environmental empathy?

Methods
This study employed a case study design, conceptualizing the case as a bounded system interacting with two elementary teachers' (both in Title 1 schools) myriad historical, social, and environmental lived experiences (Merriam, 1998). I applied a qualitative inquiry approach to the case study (Yin, 2018) to help understand the teachers’ perceptions of participatory climate change story-telling.

Data sources
Data sources included recordings of professional development meetings, a follow-up interview, and reflections about the story-telling assignment with the elementary teachers. The focus was mainly on reflections on the story-telling method and discussing the student’s climate change stories about the monarch butterflies' migration to Mexico.

Results
From examining the stories produced and the input from elementary teachers, we observed that storytelling allowed students to express their creativity through various mediums, such as graphics or text. Additionally, it fostered empathy towards monarch butterflies, whose migration is locally significant. The stories highlighted by teachers often centered around themes of hope and fear related to challenges like adverse weather and habitat loss from deforestation. Moreover, many students explored the interconnectedness between monarch butterflies, humans, and other living beings in their narratives.

Scholarly Significance
This work highlights how story-telling can help elementary teachers see the need to teach climate change science grounded around communal collective care towards humans and non-humans and hope toward a more socio-ecological just future. Storytelling can be a stepping stone in helping teachers and students view humans and non-humans as characters of this complex relational system that needs our empathy and care to create a thriving planet.

Author

• Amal Ibourk, Florida State University