Existential Toolkit for Climate Justice Educators: How to Teach in a Burning World

by Jennifer Atkinson, Sarah Jaquette Ray

An easy-to-use field guide for teaching on climate injustice and building resilience in your students—and yourself—in an age of crisis.

As feelings of eco-grief and climate anxiety grow, educators are grappling with how to help students learn about the violent systems causing climate change while simultaneously navigating the emotions this knowledge elicits. This book provides resources for developing emotional and existential tenacity in college classrooms so that students can stay engaged.

Featuring insights from scholars, educators, activists, artists, game designers, and others who are integrating emotional wisdom into climate justice education, this user-friendly guide offers a robust menu of interdisciplinary, plug-and-play teaching strategies, lesson plans, and activities to support student transformation and build resilience. The book also includes reflections from students who have taken classes that incorporate their emotions in the curricula. Galvanizing and practical, The Existential Toolkit for Climate Justice Educators will equip both educators and their students with tools for advancing climate justice.

Genres: Environment, Teaching

339 pages, Paperback

Published May 14, 2024

About the author

Apart from Drift Ice (Etruscan Press, 2008), Jennifer Atkinson is the author of two collections of poetry: The Dogwood Tree (University of Alabama Press, 1990), which won the University of Alabama Poetry Prize, and The Drowned City (Northeastern University Press, 2000), winner of the Samuel French Morse Prize. Her poetry and nonfiction can be seen in many leading journals and have been honored with Pushcart Prizes. She taught in Nepal, in Japan, at the University of Iowa, and at Washington University before joining the faculty of George Mason University.

Reviews

[Jessica DeWitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I originally picked up this volume to learn more about communicating to youth about historical empathy and ways to avoid doomism when talking about climate change and the need for a just transition to them. Although I'm not a formal teacher at this point-in-time, I still gained a lot of insight into climate communication that I can work into my editorial and writing work, as well as some new ways to think about my own thoughts and feelings, as well as those closest to me, regarding climate change.