Climate Literacy in Education

From Bowl to Being

Rice, Manoomin, Relational Climate Literacy and Responsibility Across Cultures

Wanqi Shang

Nankai University

Keywords: rice, picturebook, manoomin, relationality, multispecies justice

Abstract

Climate literacy education faces the challenge of translating abstract climate knowledge into everyday practice. This article approaches rice, a material and cultural entity, as a relational entry point for climate literacy through a cross-cultural dialogue between two picturebooks: Rice, which portrays seasonal labor in the Hani terraces of Yunnan, China, and The Gift of Mnoomin, which narrates wild rice/Manoomin as a sacred relative in Anishinaabe tradition. Through close readings of these picturebooks, this article explores how (wild)rice is framed as a subject with dignity, history, and agency through the analysis towards two complementary modes of responsibility: responsibility cultivated through labor and responsibility grounded in recognizing kinship. Bringing these perspectives into conversation, the article argues that relational climate literacy emerges where knowledge, practice, and ethical acknowledgment intersect, cultivating habits of care rooted in everyday encounters with food.