“We have observed that many of our students are unsure how to respond to sustainability education, often feeling overwhelmed and discouraged witnessing the ever more extreme weather, the hurt and loss of living beings, and the slow speed and quality of institutional or societal response,” says Bernadett Kiss, lecturer at the International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics (IIIEE).
Toolbox offers diverse exercises
The toolbox offers a range of exercises for children and youth, from quick five-minute breathing exercises to week-long assignments that connect students with people from different generations for shared learning. Other examples include movement exercises to ease climate stress, journalling to express emotions, supporting local ecosystems, and exploring hopeful futures through art, and joint climate engagement.
The toolbox is designed to nurture five clusters of transformative competencies that help address climate anxiety and support sustained engagement: (1) Caring for climate emotions and trauma, (2) nurturing connection to oneself, others and nature, (3) embracing values that sustain all living beings, (4) opening up to diverse climate-resilient and regenerative futures, and (5) taking collective action for climate resilience, ecosystem regeneration, and societal transformation.
“Our aim was to develop exercises that help students engage with both the immediate impacts and underlying causes of the climate crisis, for example through self-reflection, compassion, and connection to oneself, others, and nature, while transforming difficult emotions into a sense of meaning and agency – dimensions that remain largely absent from mainstream sustainability education,” says Christine Wamsler, Professor at Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS).
Each of the five competency areas has different associated exercises in the toolbox. All of them can be integrated at various teaching levels and are designed to suit children and youth of different ages.
Already incorporated into teaching
In her teaching, Bernadett Kiss often uses an emotional check-in exercise, giving learners an opportunity to reflect on what energies they bring into the learning space and if they like, share how they are feeling. At the end of the class, they do a check-out, identifying and describing their emotions after the session.
“This is a very short activity that doesn’t require much time but provides a tool for normalising emotions. By recognising, acknowledging and naming rather than suppressing your feelings, you can begin processing them and formulating a response to challenging situations,” says Bernadett Kiss. "Viktor E. Frankl, an Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist and philosopher describes this process as part of our development and freedom."
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom", says Bernadett Kiss.
Parts of the toolbox have been piloted in various parts of Europe, including Hungary, Germany, Sweden, Norway, and Ukraine, plus Africa. Feedback from both teachers and students has been very positive, emphasising the importance of addressing not only intellectual skills, but also emotional and relational competencies.
“Creating a truly sustainable world means bringing together head, heart, and hands. For too long, education has prioritised cognitive, intellectual, and professional knowledge, but there is now growing recognition that emotional, relational, and embodied competencies are just as critical for navigating today’s complex crises,” says Christine Wamsler.
