Climate Literacy in Education

Knowing Land Through Love

Amanda Kingston — 2026-03-19

This article describes a seven-step process for offering contemplative outdoor experiences for students. Contemplative outdoor engagements are those experiences and practices that ask humans to move slowly through nature to foster introspection, attention to details, and deep gratitude for our earth-kin. Contemplative outdoor engagements include practices like forest therapy, forest bathing, or mindful outdoor engagements, and they can be done individually or within group settings, guided or alone. We propose that these activities can support the development of climate literacy, which depends on providing students with opportunities to form meaningful connections with the more-than-human world.

Bees' Needs

Katherine Walsh — 2026-06-10

The Bees’ Needs Curriculum was created to help children build a personal relationship to nature while laying the groundwork for future conversations about climate change. Centered around time spent in an outdoor garden, the lessons invite students to see bees not as something to fear but as neighbors who share our same basic needs—food, water, shelter, and community. Using place-based and embodied learning, children learned through movement, play, and observation, discovering how their actions can help bees thrive. Guided by the philosophy that children must love the Earth before we ask them to save it, this approach shifts environmental education away from anxiety and toward empathy, care, and curiosity. Through inquiry and hands-on exploration, students developed both understanding and affection for the natural world, showing that even small, empathetic encounters with bees can inspire lasting environmental awareness and stewardship.

Goldilocks on Ice

Zahira Sánchez Madrero — 2026-03-19

This essay examines Jan Brett’s The Three Snow Bears (2007) as a retelling of the Goldilocks tale set in the Arctic and enriched with Inuit cultural elements. Drawing on Brett’s visits to Iqaluit in the Canadian Arctic, the book uses detailed illustrations of polar landscapes, traditional clothing, and Inuit homes to immerse readers in a threatened ecosystem. The essay argues that Brett’s illustrations operate as visual texts that teach ecological interdependence, allowing the book to function as a tool for early climate literacy. By integrating cultural specificity, ecological awareness, and visual storytelling, Brett’s adaptation models how children’s literature can cultivate ecological empathy and foster interdisciplinary climate education.

The Ethics of Using Generative Artificial Intelligence for Climate Literacies

Mark Sulzer — 2026-03-19

We argue that GenAI runs contrary to climate literacy, a stance that emerged after a period of experimenting with Large Language Models (LLMs). This article explores this position by presenting ethical questions around GenAI, ranging from light concerns to the darkest dilemmas of the climate emergency. We conclude by offering a three-step instructional framework based on shifting our approach from teaching with GenAI to teaching about it. The framework emphasizes investigating the presence of GenAI in our lives, raising awareness about GenAI’s environmental costs, and making something real (an essay, poem, infographic, skit, and so on) to convey ideas about climate justice. We close the article by providing a link to additional resources.

From Bowl to Being

Wanqi Shang — 2026-08-20

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.

Listening to the Trees

Colleen Redmond — 2026-07-24

From Winnie the Pooh’s Hundred Acre Wood to the Ents in The Lord of the Rings and Truffula Trees in The Lorax, trees have long had a central place in stories told to children. This article reflects on the creation of a tree- and forest-centered literary thematic package through the lens of community, kinship, and agency. Rooted in Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS), this collection of picturebooks, novels, videos, digital resources, and artwork reframes trees as more than passive materials for human use and invites students to reflect on their connections not only with other humans but with the plants, animals, and more-than-human beings who share this planet. Designed as a resource for K-12 educators, this work discusses the creation of the package, selection criteria, and possibilities for developing future collections, offering practical guidance and inspiration for educators seeking relational, story-based thematic approaches to climate literacy.

The Beautiful Future Is Coming:

Ben Screech — 2026-04-08

I was lucky enough to be granted an interview with British playwright Flora Wilson Brown, after seeing her climate change-themed play The Beautiful Future Is Coming at the Bristol Old Vic (UK) in Spring 2025. The conversation explores Flora’s thoughts on the role of drama in deepening climate literacy and the challenge of living happily in an uncertain age.