Undergraduates’ Imaginings for Climate Justice Teaching: Exploring Relationships Across Nature, Constructive Hope, and Meaningful Action

• In Event: Climate Emotion, Agency, and Justice in Formal and Informal Settings

Abstract

Purpose. Climate change is a complex phenomenon that involves multiple, interacting systems at local and global scales (Emmanuel, 2018). The teaching of climate change is also complex as it requires engaging students in examining these multiple systems while attending to their individual relationships with nature and to larger social justice issues (Windschitl, 2023). The purpose of our study was to investigate undergraduate students’ imaginings of teaching climate justice to youth in the context of an undergraduate course.

Conceptual Framework. We drew from Author et al.’s (2024b) Climate Justice Education Framework to organize both the undergraduate course and our study. This framework includes 12 intersecting dimensions to teach climate justice, including ecological caring and humility, place-based and outdoor learning, and solution- and action-focused learning. It supported undergraduates in exploring how relationality with nature can foster constructive hope and meaningful action in their own lives and how they can support youth in doing the same.

Method. We employed a case study design (Yin, 2018) to answer our research question: What did undergraduates learn about how to teach climate justice to youth in a course on climate change teaching? Ten undergraduates were enrolled in the 10-week seminar. Data collected included weekly assignments, final group action projects, video records of seminar instruction, and an end-of-course focus group interview. We analyzed these data qualitatively. We began with a priori codes of nature connection, constructive hope, and meaningful action, and then identified relevant themes.

Findings. From our qualitative analysis, we identified three salient themes.
● Centering Nature Connection Activities Fostered a Sense of Hope. We found that, regardless of undergraduates’ science background, all developed a more positive outlook for the future and a stronger sense of agency. In particular, activities typically implemented with early elementary students helped undergraduates reflect on their own relationships with nature, eased their ecoanxiety, and supported their mental resilience.
● Moving Toward Climate Solutions Through the Development of Action Plans. We also found that undergraduates were able to craft projects designed to engage youth in addressing climate change. Undergraduates’ action projects centered two dimensions: nature connection and community participation.
● Recognizing Complexities in Centering Justice and Acting Locally. Finally, we found that undergraduates were able to reflect on the inequities of climate impacts and to identify complexities in helping youth take action locally. For example, an undergraduate in the focus group shared, “Something that I will take away is that climate change justice is not like a one size fits all. It's very important to know that every community is different, and some have opportunities and access to different resources. … So sometimes it's not that people can't make a change, they just don't have the opportunities to.”

Significance. We found undergraduates’ deeper understanding of their relationship with nature fostered their own resilience to ecoanxiety and led to insights into meaningful action with youth. Research on the teaching and learning of climate change grows ever more important if we are to address climate impacts and attend to climate justice now and in the future.

Authors

• Devon Azzam, University of California - Santa Barbara

• Kaylee Allison Laub, University of California - Santa Barbara

• Julie Bianchini, University of California - Santa Barbara

• Danielle B. Harlow, University of California - Santa Barbara

• Karin Lohwasser, University of California - Santa Barbara