From fear to understanding: A social-emotional approach to teaching climate change
By Amy Liang, teacher, Vancouver
Climate change is one of the most significant and widely discussed issues facing today’s students. Having studied and researched climate change for nearly a decade, I understand it as a complex, long-term environmental process that has been significantly influenced by human activities. However, in my teaching practice, I have noticed that students often approach climate change primarily through the lenses of “climate crisis” and “climate urgency.”
As an educator, this concerns me. When fear and anxiety dominate the conversation, meaningful learning can become difficult. Students may feel overwhelmed, disengage from the topic, or struggle to see their own capacity to understand and respond to it.
This lesson plan offers a classroom approach to teaching climate change that begins with students’ emotions and builds toward scientific understanding, critical thinking, and a sense of agency. Grounded in social-emotional learning, BC’s competency-based curriculum, and Indigenous perspectives, the lesson helps students engage with climate change in a way that is both intellectually rigorous and emotionally supportive. It also includes practical tools and resources that can be readily adapted across grade levels and subject areas.
Step 1: Starting with emotion
Teachers begin the lesson with a question that has nothing to do with scientific content: What’s the first word that comes to mind when you hear the phrase climate change? For older students, responses can be collected anonymously through a platform such as Mentimeter. For younger students, they can write their thoughts on paper and participate in a snowball activity to share ideas with one another. Common responses include words such as fear, disaster, hot, and unknown. Before discussing data or definitions, teachers take time to acknowledge these initial reactions. Learning does not begin with content; it begins with how students feel.
Step 2: Making space for uncertainty
Rather than correcting misconceptions immediately, teachers invite students to share what they already know, think they know, or wonder about climate change. Responses are often incomplete, contradictory, or influenced by media messages. This uncertainty is not a problem to be fixed right away. Instead, it becomes part of the learning process. When students feel safe to ask questions and admit uncertainty, they are more willing to participate, take intellectual risks, and engage with new ideas.
Step 3: Exploring without overwhelm
Once students have shared their thoughts and feelings, teachers introduce climate data. Depending on the grade level, students may explore global climate data from NASA or local climate data from the Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium. Rather than focusing immediately on conclusions, students are encouraged to discuss what they notice, what surprises them, and what they find confusing. Through collaborative discussion and inquiry, students begin to distinguish between uncertainty and helplessness.
Step 4: Separating facts from fear
Teachers then guide students in distinguishing between established facts, future projections, and common misconceptions about climate change. This helps students develop a more nuanced understanding of the topic and encourages critical thinking. As students learn to evaluate information and evidence, climate change becomes less of an overwhelming concept and more of a complex issue that can be examined thoughtfully.
Step 5: Rebuilding a sense of agency
After building understanding, teachers invite students to consider what individuals, schools, communities, and governments can do in response to climate change. Although these actions may seem small, they help students recognize that they are not powerless. By focusing on achievable actions, students begin to shift from anxiety toward a greater sense of agency and responsibility. BC’s Climate Preparedness and Adaptation Strategy and climate action resources are available on the Government of British Columbia website.
Step 6: Learning through Indigenous ways of knowing and being
To deepen the conversation, teachers can introduce Indigenous perspectives that emphasize relationships with the land, community, and future generations. Resources such as the Climate Atlas of Canada provide accessible entry points for exploring Indigenous knowledges, perspectives, and experiences related to climate change.
Students are encouraged to consider how learning can occur through relationships and lived experiences, rather than solely through observation and analysis. Discussions may explore ideas such as learning from the land, understanding responsibilities to future generations, and recognizing humans as part of, rather than separate from, the natural world.
Through this lens, climate change becomes more than an environmental or scientific issue. It also becomes a question of relationships, responsibility, and stewardship. Students are invited to reflect on how their actions affect others and how decisions made today may influence future generations.
This broader perspective supports the development of empathy, social awareness, and a deeper understanding of interconnectedness. By engaging with Indigenous ways of knowing and being, students encounter alternative ways of understanding the world and are encouraged to think beyond individual concerns toward collective well-being.
Step 7: Returning to emotion with new understanding
At the end of the lesson, teachers return to the opening question. The responses are often noticeably different, with words such as action, responsibility, change, and hope emerging. Students reflect on how their thinking has evolved and what contributed to that change.
Why this approach works
This lesson works because it recognizes that emotions are an important part of learning. By acknowledging emotions and gradually building understanding through inquiry, discussion, and reflection, teachers create conditions that support both well-being and academic engagement.
A final reflection
Climate change is often taught as a problem to understand. For many students, however, it is also something to feel. By beginning with emotion and building toward action, climate change education can help students not only understand the world around them but also recognize their capacity to contribute to positive change.
Resources
Global climate data, evidence of climate change, data visualizations, and educational resources.
British Columbia climate data, regional projections, and local climate resources.
Resources exploring Indigenous perspectives on climate change, the land, and environmental stewardship.
Interactive polling and word-cloud tool that can be used to collect anonymous student responses and support classroom discussion.
An overview of the core competencies and principles that inform social-emotional learning practices.
Province of British Columbia climate target updates, legislation, and regional strategy framework.
