Coping with "Eco-grief" through Social Emotional Learning
Keystone Center for Innovation & Teacher Education
Enabling Educator Communities for Innovation & Impact
Empowering Students to cope with climate change anxiety through Social and Emotional Learning
According to a global survey conducted by Hickman (2021) in The Lancet Planetary Health, 59% of young people reported feeling "very or extremely worried" about climate change, with many expressing feelings of betrayal by governments and institutions. With the advancement in technology and constant distractions as a result of growing modernity, it is not uncommon to overlook the deep impact that climate change can have on our mental well-being. The link between mental health and climate change is intricate and multi-faceted. At the first glance, it may look like two distinct concepts which are completely unrelated to one another, however when probed the constant uncertainty about the future can result in mental agony and latent fear about one's future. This existential nihilism has led to the coinage of the term “Eco-anxiety”. Eco-anxiety is short form for Ecological anxiety, which is referred to as a chronic fear of ecological doom.
Fear of Ecological doom could be understood as a fear that earth is inevitably going to end one day due to human activities such as immense pollution, deforestation and mining amongst the few. Climate change problems are plaguing the world where extreme heat waves are leading to deaths, hospitalisations and frequent emergency room visits. This is known to particularly affect kids, the elderly and the people who work outdoors. The heatwaves are in turn causing melting of the glaciers, floods and changing weather patterns. Wildfires have become a common phenomenon, and as the climate is shifting the world is becoming a breeding ground for mosquitoes leading to increasing cases in Chikungunya, Zika etc.
Eco-anxiety is becoming prevalent amongst students who read frequently about these devastating effects of climate change. This gives them a sense of uncertainty and unpredictability about their future. It leaves them with a feeling of helplessness and despair. To address this, integrating Social and Emotional Learning(SEL) into the curriculum could prove to be essential to help students develop resilience to overcome these anxieties and stress. For the students facing this profuse reality of climate change, resilience could mean the difference between feeling helpless by fear or feeling motivated to take action and look after their mental health.
Social and Emotional Learning removes the absolutist rigid mindset that says “I need to save the planet”, and instead it moves to a more adaptive thought-process, “I want to contribute to environmental protection”. A shift from “need to do” to “want to do” leads to an overall reduction in anxiety. SEL plays a key role in reducing climate anxiety as it is a type of “cognitive restructuring”.
First and foremost it aids the students in recognising their emotions. It helps the students understand that feeling sad, frustrated, helpless or even angry is normal in the face of overwhelming environmental issues. This is supported by the work of Brackett (2019), which emphasises that emotional intelligence is key to managing anxiety and promoting mental well-being. Recognizing emotions related to eco-anxiety helps students prevent overwhelming feelings from turning into chronic stress or depressive symptoms. Secondly, it helps students break-down overwhelming problems like Climate-change into small actionable steps.
A study by Ojala (2012) in Environmental Education Research found that young people who engaged in problem-focused coping strategies, such as taking small environmental actions, experienced lower levels of climate anxiety. SEL promotes coping strategies by teaching students to break-down large complex problems into smaller action plans. This not only provides students with a sense of satisfaction but also endows them with agency which helps them get over the feeling of hopelessness.
Another key aspect of SEL is to promote empathy and social awareness, which are imperative for understanding the collective nature of climate action. Research by Holm (2021) found that empathy and community engagement are linked to better mental health outcomes in students dealing with climate anxiety. Social Emotional Learning helps students see themselves as a part of a larger collective whole who are together in this effort to reduce climate change and its effects. This helps in reducing this feeling of isolation and despair.
Incorporating a number of SEL strategies throughout climate change lessons help students tackle climate change and name climate change anxieties. The teacher should come forward and talk about her/his own climate anxieties so that the students can get over the feeling of isolation and grief and know that the classroom is a safe space for dialogue which would in turn help them combat the loneliness of “eco-grief”.?
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As much as climate change is a reality, teaching about climate change is also something which cannot be done away with. Bringing the topic in the classroom in a controlled, intentional and solution-oriented manner can lead to more student engagement and be a powerful tool in the development of coping tools amongst our youth. Climate change curricula, when designed with the goal of providing students with the social and emotional skills they need to deal with the climate catastrophe, can serve as a vehicle for learning and practising healthy coping techniques, communication, teamwork, and problem-solving.
Citations: Hickman, C., Marks, E., Pihkala, P., et al. (2021). Young People's Voices on Climate Anxiety, Government Betrayal and Moral Injury: A Global Phenomenon. The Lancet Planetary Health.
Holm, S., Fedorov, D., & van der Linden, S. (2021). The influence of empathy on students’ pro-environmental behaviour and well-being. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 76, 101614.
Ojala, M. (2012). Hope and climate change: The importance of hope for environmental engagement among young people. Environmental Education Research, 18(5), 625-642.