In this TED Talk, Clover Hogan discusses how the vastness and complexity of climate change can lead people to anxiety and denial instead of action.
Hogan describes her struggle and journey to confront her eco-anxiety and offers some helpful advice for others experiencing the same.
Teaching Tips
Positives
Many children, teens, and young adults experience eco-anxiety or mental health crises from learning about climate change. This resource is a great way for students to realize that they are not alone, and there are solutions to combat this feeling.
The speaker emphasizes that we should focus on one thing that we can control: our mindset. She offers a solution by suggesting we confront the stories we tell ourselves that are holding us back from taking action.
Subtitles and a translated transcript are available in 12 languages.
Additional Prerequisites
Before viewing, consider asking students to share if they have ever felt overwhelmed or anxious about climate change.
Differentiation
After watching the video, encourage students to write down their own stories that are paralyzing them and challenge them to come up with a personal action that will make a difference.
Life skills or advisory classes could discuss the role that mindset plays in making someone an active participant or a passive observer.
This 13-minute TEDx talk explores aspects of mental health in relationship with climate and environmental disaster. The speaker gives personal examples of times she felt fear, anger, despair, and helplessness, and discusses how these emotions are legitimate and how they can be used to understand and address societal issues related to the environment. This resource is recommended for teaching.
Standards
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
MS-ESS3-5 Ask questions to clarify evidence of the factors that have caused the rise in global temperatures over the past century.
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.
D4.6.9-12 Use disciplinary and interdisciplinary lenses to understand the characteristics and causes of local, regional, and global problems; instances of such problems in multiple contexts; and challenges and opportunities faced by those trying to address these problems over time and place.
