How to give more room to climate emotions?
When climate change is discussed in the classroom, the focus is usually on the facts: CO鈧 levels, melting ice caps, extreme weather. But there鈥檚 something else just as important that rarely gets the space it deserves. It is high time we start paying more attention to climate emotions in education, according to Utrecht 木瓜福利影视 researchers Michiel van Harskamp and Andrik Becht. Today, they will be discussing at Utrecht Science Week. We asked one of them to give us a preview of what to expect.
When asked about climate change (watch video), young people don鈥檛 feel just one thing. 鈥淚t鈥檚 important to demystify the idea that all young people are worried about climate change,鈥 says researcher and teacher Michiel van Harskamp. 鈥淪ome are even bored by it. Some think, 鈥業 can鈥檛 do anything about it, then why bother?鈥 Others say, 鈥業 don鈥檛 really believe it will affect me too much.鈥 But of course, you also see young people being worried and activistic. That鈥檚 very common too.鈥
Research shows that it鈥檚 common for young people to shift between emotions (worried one day, indifferent the next), or experience them all at once. For teachers, this wide range of responses raises a challenge: how do you deal with a classroom of 30 or 200 where every student feels something different about climate change?
Emotions guide a lot of our decisions.
Emotions matter
鈥淚t is well-known that emotions guide a lot of our decisions,鈥 Van Harskamp says. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a very nice paper by psychologist Jonathan Haidt called . His point is that our decisions are driven first by intuition and emotion (the dog), while reasoning (the tail) usually comes afterward to justify those gut feelings.鈥
In other words, feelings like helplessness, anger, guilt, hope or indifference all shape how people engage with the climate crisis. For example, climate anxiety can push someone towards activism, while despair can cause avoidance, or the other way around. 鈥淩esearch is still mixed on exactly how emotions influence action, but one thing is clear: if teachers want to prepare students to engage meaningfully with climate change, ignoring emotions is not an option,鈥 Van Harskamp says.
Creating space for emotions
So what can teachers at schools and universities do?
Make sure that students feel seen and heard.
The most important step is simply creating a safe space where students feel their emotions are acknowledged. 鈥淢aking sure that people feel seen and heard. That, of course, involves creating a setting where people feel safe to share what they actually think or feel,鈥 he explains. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really important to show that it鈥檚 perfectly fine to have all of these different emotions. They happen, and we just have to find a way to navigate them.鈥
Bringing emotions into the classroom won鈥檛 make the fight against climate change any less complicated, Van Harskamp clarifies. But it can make space for students and teachers to learn to empathise with each other, and find constructive ways to respond together.
Three things teachers can do
According to Michiel van Harskamp, here are three practical ways teachers can bring climate emotions into the classroom:
1. Focus on values, not winning arguments. Instead of trying to convince students of the 鈥渞ight鈥 perspective, ask questions like: Why do you feel this way? Where does it come from? This helps students understand each other鈥檚 perspectives and foster empathy.
2. Teach for active hope. Show students that climate action is not only about personal lifestyle changes (鈥榞o vegan, fly less鈥) but also, or especially, about collective efforts. Encourage projects with visible impact, like making the schoolyard more biodiverse. Seeing the difference their actions make can spark motivation.
3. Collaborate across subjects. Climate change is not just a science issue. It touches ethics, social studies, geography, economics, history and more. Teachers can strengthen climate education by connecting across disciplines, even if it means stepping outside traditional subject boundaries.