As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.
The primary language of the journal is English. Use 12-point type in one of the standard fonts: Times, Helvetica, or Courier. Please double-line space your manuscript. We only review manuscripts that are below 2,000 words including tables, figures, and references. For specific length limits, see content category descriptions. Tables must be pasted on separate pages after the reference list, (i.e not in the main text). Figures should be uploaded as separate files. Footnotes and endnotes are strongly discouraged. All submissions must include two separate documents:
All authors of a manuscript should include their full names and affiliations on the cover page of the manuscript. Where available, include ORCiDs and social media handles (Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn). One author will need to be identified as the corresponding author, with their email address displayed in the article PDF and online.
Enter an abstract of 100 to 150 words for all articles. An abstract is a concise summary of the whole manuscript, not just the conclusions, and is understandable without reference to the rest of the manuscript. It should contain no citation to other published work. You may also choose to create a video abstract (up to 1 min) in which you introduce your article. The video abstract will be published alongside the text abstract.
Contributions from anyone who does not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed, with permission from the contributor, in an Acknowledgments section. Financial and material support should also be mentioned. Thanks to anonymous reviewers are not appropriate.
Authors will be asked to provide a conflict of interest statement (also known as disclosure statement) during the submission process. The goal is to acknowledge any financial or non-financial interest that has arisen from the direct applications of your research. A conflict of interest can occur when you, or your employer, or sponsor have a financial, commercial, legal, or professional relationship with other organizations, or with the people working with them, that could influence your research. To maintain transparency, any associations which can be perceived by others as a conflict of interest must also be declared. Submitting authors should ensure they liaise with all co-authors to confirm agreement with the final statement. If there are no relevant competing interests to declare please state this explicitly, for example: The authors declare that there are no competing interests related to the work described in this article.
Figures should be high quality (1200 dpi for line art, 600 dpi for grayscale and 300 dpi for color, at the correct size). They should be supplied in one of our preferred file formats: EPS, PGN, PDF, JPEG, or TIFF. Figures may be submitted in color (and will be reproduced in color), but we ask authors to consider that line figures (like graphs and charts) are best supplied in black and white so that they are legible if printed by a reader in black and white. Figure legends should be concise but comprehensive – the figure and its legend must be understandable without reference to the text. Include definitions of any symbols used and define/explain all abbreviations and units of measurement.
Keywords should match the keywords added into the submission system. They should help readers locate the article by theme(s).
References should be prepared according to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Seventh Edition (2020, APA-7). For more information about APA style, visit https://apastyle.apa.org/ and https://apastyle.apa.org/blog . Text citations should follow the author-date method whereby the author's last name and the year of publication for the source should appear in the text. The complete reference list should appear alphabetically by name at the end of the manuscript. Please note that a DOI should be provided for all references where available. For more information about APA referencing style, please refer to the APA FAQ.
Supplementary material may include a video, dataset, fileset, sound file, appendix or anything which supports your article or provides it with greater depth and background. Yet, supplementary material is information that is not essential to the article. Supplementary material is hosted online and appears without editing or typesetting.
Tables should be editable files, not images. They should present new information rather than duplicate what is already in the text. They should also be self-contained: readers should be able to interpret the table without reference to the text. Legends should be concise but comprehensive – the table, legend, and footnotes must be understandable without reference to the text. All abbreviations must be defined in footnotes. Footnote symbols: †, ‡, §, ¶, should be used (in that order) and *, **, *** should be reserved for P-values.
Curriculum articles include classroom resources for teaching climate literacy and/or mobilizing climate activism with stories: lesson plans, unit design, activity and project plans, syllabi, assessment, teaching methods, formulas or instructional strategies. Curriculum articles report innovative practices happening in real classrooms with a brief narrative outline of the lesson or unit. They may include links to longer or more detailed teaching resources, like handouts, activity sheets, detailed lesson plans, etc. or links to longer narrative descriptions published separately as Reflection articles.
Curriculum articles fall into the 750 to 1500 word limit. This includes abstract, references, figures, and tables. Supplementary materials (to be linked from the article) are welcomed. The following components are necessary for submitting:
Title Page, which should contain:
Main text: 750 to 1500-word long (including references). Subheadings (thematic or structural) are recommended to make the article easier to follow and to highlight its main points.
References: section listing the sources referred to in the article.
Reflection articles include opinion pieces, personal reflections, teaching testimonials and reports, reflections on student created projects, reflective reviews of scholarship or methodologies applicable to classroom teaching, and other practice-based forms of narrative reflection. These articles reflect on an issue/theme you encountered in your pedagogical practice and how you handled it. They offer personal testimonials about an event, summary of a project you completed, a course, unit, or module you taught. Say, “My three takeaways from exploring climate anxiety with high-school students.” Reflections may include testimonials from students—individuals or groups—sharing their moments of empowerment, transformation, emotional growth, and other takeaways from engaging with climate literacy. Reflections can also be linked to a Curriculum article.
Reflection articles fall into the 500 to 1200 word limit. This includes abstract and references (if any). The following components are necessary for submitting:
Title Page, which should contain:
Main text: 500 to 1200-word long (including references). Subheadings (thematic or structural) are recommended to make the article easier to follow and to highlight its main points.
References: section listing the sources referred to in the article.
Critical Essays are academically crafted and theoretically informed articles that present an in-depth argument about a broader issue or challenge related to climate literacy and explore its pedagogical implications. This category includes but is not limited to scholarly articles, conceptual and big picture articles; conceptual- and classroom practice-oriented summaries, synopses or reviews of research and scholarship (esp. shorter, practice-oriented versions of longer scholarly texts published elsewhere, with links to the original source); policy or framework analyses or commentaries; narrative explainers or critiques; and interviews or dialogues on practice. Critical Essays comment on an aspect of climate education theory or practice in a provocative or explanatory manner. We are looking for insightful and innovative writing that engages with the challenge of building universal climate literacy using stories for young audiences. We are particularly keen to be sent pieces with practical messages offering a way forward.
Critical Essays fall into the 900 to 2000 word limit. This includes abstract, references, figures, and tables. The following components are necessary for submitting:
Title Page, which should contain:
Main text: 900 to 2000-word long (including references). Subheadings (thematic or structural) are recommended to make the article easier to follow and to highlight its main points.
References: section listing the primary and secondary sources referred to in the article.
Creative & Multimodal submissions go beyond nature appreciation or observation to engage with ecocentric concepts, systems, and ethics. These submissions should include a reflective component (framing narrative) called Artist Statement or Description to situate the creative component. The creative component might take the form of poetry or visual artwork; music or performance art events; recordings of climate action events or spoken word performance; ecomedia literacy and social media projects; youth-created multimedia commentaries, documentaries, reports, and other artivism projects that can serve as models for classroom practice. Because parameters for creative & multimedia submissions are diverse, determining the fit of the submission will be at the discretion of CLE editors. Questions should be submitted directly to the Lead Editor.
Creative & Multimodal articles and creative works should be brief in length and time. For example, keeping creative files around 3 pages (for visuals), under 1500 words (for text & images), or under 5 min (for audio/visual recordings). The following components are necessary for submitting:
Title Page, which should contain:
Creative and/or Multimodal Work: following are suggestions for approaching the submission of these works. If something you would like to submit is not listed or you have questions or concerns, please reach out to the Lead Editor.
Artist Statement or Description: A brief artist statement or a concise summary of the work serves as a narrative framing of your submission. The goal is to help our audience understand the pedagogical possibilities of your creative work. The artist statement or description should be under 100 words and should contain no citation to other published work.
References: (if relevant) section listing the primary and secondary sources referred to in the article.
*Note: Do not submit database and glossary entries here without first requesting to write your entry at https://www.climatelit.org/get-involved/ and receiving confirmation that the entry is available. Otherwise, you may risk being rejected if someone else is already writing that entry.
Summary paragraph. Briefly summarize the story, introducing characters, setting and conflict. Aim at a minimalist summary that conveys what the work is about.
Review paragraph 1. Start with a single sentence that explains the use(s) of this story for climate literacy education. What issues or concepts does it help us notice or consider? What questions does it raise? What connections among various urgencies of climate change does it paint? Be as specific as you can but remember that this is not a lesson plan (though you are welcome to write a lesson plan for Climate Literacy in Education to link to the entry). Often the work will not be entirely about climate change, but will include an episode or chapter that especially lend themselves to climate literacy conversations. Throughout, please use bold face to indicate any relevant terms, concepts, or themes from the Glossary (or add/create one too) so that your audience knows where the work fits within larger strands of climate literacy education. A good practice is to center one or two key concepts—say, slow violence, or animal conservation, or fracking—as key lenses for the work.
Review paragraph 2. If you need more space, use another paragraph. The entire entry should not be longer than 500 words.
More. If you have links to other reviews, author interviews/talks, related books, lesson plans, or other resources, you may list them below.
Topics. List any keywords and topics that connect to the entry.
Images. The entry should be accompanied by high-res image of the cover, and (for picturebooks and other visual formats) a few images of the pages or screenshots. We can help you find these if you do not have any on hand.
Notes.
Glossary Term (identify origin of term here if relevant)
Start with a single sentence that offers a brief definition of the term (think dictionary definition). Then use the remaining space to explain the term’s context, history, and popular usage. If there is contention around the glossary term, please explain. If the term is a person’s name, you may offer a brief biography that highlights the person’s relevance to climate issues. Throughout, please use embedded hyperlinks to direct the reader to relevant sources and resources. Use bold face if you mention other glossary terms.
The entire entry should not be longer than 500 words.
Related terms. List any other glossary terms that connect to this entry.
More or See Also. If you have links to other reviews, author interviews/talks, related books, lesson plans, or other resources, you may list them below.
Notes
If the Journal agrees to publish the Article, you hereby agree that it will be distributed with a Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY 4.0). This means that each author holds the copyright to their work, and grants all users the rights to: share (copy and/or redistribute the material in any medium or format) or adapt (remix, transform, and/or build upon the material) the article, as long as the original author and source is cited.
The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.
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The copyright of these individual works published by the University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing remains with the original creator or editorial team. For uses beyond those covered by law or the Creative Commons license, permission to reuse should be sought directly from the copyright owner listed on each article.
