This podcast explains how people can combat their anxiety about the environment and climate change by building community, staying hopeful, working with like-minded climate activists, and spending time in nature.
Students will hear interviews with climate activist Tori Tsui and Hemlata Pant (Newton Nature Club Founder) who talk about how they deal with climate anxiety.
Teaching Tips
Positives
Students will learn about the importance of sharing their feelings about climate change and the environment with other people and taking action.
This podcast will help students realize that they are not alone and that they can still feel hopeful about the future of the planet.
Additional Prerequisites
Teachers may want to preface this podcast by explaining that it is normal to feel anxious about the climate crisis and that help is available for students who feel overwhelmed.
Differentiation
Environmental clubs or advisory groups could use this podcast to discuss how important resting and prioritizing mental health is for activists. Students could create a mental health checklist along with a list of solutions for combatting "eco anxiety."
Psychology or health classes could research how anxiety and stress can impact people's health and how taking action can help people feel less anxious.
The podcast focuses on environmental anxiety, mental health, and the subtleties of climate advocacy. It explores how we can combat climate change by working together in our community. The classroom should use this.
Standards
College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Standards
Dimension 4: Taking Informed Action
D4.7.6-8 Assess their individual and collective capacities to take action to address local, regional, and global problems, taking into account a range of possible levers of power, strategies, and potential outcomes.
D4.7.9-12 Assess options for individual and collective action to address local, regional, and global problems by engaging in self-reflection, strategy identification, and complex causal reasoning.
Common Core English Language Arts Standards (CCSS.ELA)
Speaking & Listening (K-12)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.6.2 Interpret information presented in diverse media and formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively, orally) and explain how it contributes to a topic, text, or issue under study.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.11-12.3 Evaluate a speaker's point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric, assessing the stance, premises, links among ideas, word choice, points of emphasis, and tone used.
