Talking with Younger People About Climate Change

A SALON PRESENTED BY THE SUZUKI ELDERS, MARCH 1, 2018, VANCOUVER B.C.

Includes: salon outline, worksheets, presentations, evaluation form, and tool kit

In preparation for this salon, we surveyed parents and youth we knew about their experiences talking with their own kids about climate change or being a youth on the receiving end of information about climate change. Twelve excerpts from those interviews and surveys are shared in separate Suzuki Elder blog. Reading these stories will help prepare you to host your own salon.

Salon Contents:

Outline of Salon
Introduction
Opening Exercise and worksheet
Story Time (this section is presented separately as a blog)
What the literature tells us
Guidelines for talking to younger people about climate change
Final practice exercise
Concluding remarks
Evaluation form and summary

SALON OUTLINE – Talking with younger people about climate change.


1. Introduction: welcome, what led us to this topic, agenda.	Verbal	5 min	Lead facilitator
2. Exploring fears/despair about climate change. What conversations do we have with ourselves about climate change and its impact on younger people?” Purpose: to encourage reflection, to identify themes and similarities.	Individual work, dyad work, whole group work. Short intro of concept, refer them to worksheet. TWO worksheet questions: 1. What fears/concerns do you hold for younger people re the impact of climate change on them? 2. What hopes/possibilities do you hold for younger people re impact of climate change on them? 10 minutes for each person to consider the questions, 15 minutes to discuss in dyads. 15 mins for whole group feedback to flipchart writer.	40 min total	Person to introduce, facilitate feedback. Person to write on flips.
3. Story time: Stories from our research, responses from participants. Purpose: to share, find “aha’s”, empower	Whole group work. Individual people will ‘tell a story” (quote) from the survey findings. Ten varying quotes will be specifically selected. At the end, the facilitator asks whole group “how do these stories make you feel…give us one or two words! Quick response feedback…someone writes up.	15 min 10 min	Each individual ‘tells’ a story. Person asks the feeling question, Person writes on flip
4. BREAK		`15 min
5. What does the literature tell us? Purpose: to provide practical information.	Short lecture-ette on what we found in the literature re talking to younger people about climate change. Tell people this material is in the toolkit they will receive at the end. CONCLUDE by referring to & walking through the guidelines we developed.	20 min max	Facilitator
6. Practice: Responding to questions and wonderings from younger people about climate change. Purpose: Practice	Whole group, triads. Show questions we have already heard from young people; generate more from whole group. Break into triads. Task: “From what you’ve heard today, what might you say in response to some of these questions…and how” One person asks the Q (pretends to be a kid), one person responds, one person observes. Three then discuss. 10 minutes max, each person gets a turn.	10 min max 35 min	Person introduces, asks for questions they’ve heard from kids. Person writes these on flip. Then group breaks into triads for the practice.
7. Closing words Purpose: hopefully, to inspire!	What we have tried to do today-review goals- and that this is a start. Affirm that they are experts on their own “youngers”, to trust themselves. Conclude with quotes from our survey.	5 min	Facilitator
8. Evaluation	TOTAL: 140 min (2.33 hrs)

1. INTRODUCTION

The Suzuki Elder Salon “Talking with younger people about climate change” has its roots in several places. Suzuki Elders have been working with youth since 2013 when we mounted a large day long forum in Vancouver called Elders, Youth and the Environment. We were struck then by youth energy and commitment to this issue that so affects their future.

Since 2015 we Elders have been researching, discussing and presenting materials to and with other adults on understanding and developing resilience to the reality – and the grief – of climate change. Then, just last fall, one of our Elders told us that her grandson, age 11, responded to her suggestion that they talk about climate change by saying “not right now Grandma” – with a tear running down his cheek.

That did it for us – it was time for us to focus on this topic – what we knew, what we didn’t know, and develop something that would work for us and others in this time of having to talk about climate change. We got this team together, read, researched, did some surveys of youth and adults we know to ask them questions about talking about climate change and put together today’s salon.

We have three goals for this afternoon salon:

We will explore our own fear and despair – and hopes about climate change in order to inform our potential discussions about climate change with younger people.
You will learn how to engage with ‘youngers’ in a climate change conversation that is useful to them.
3. You will be given tools (resources, stories, practice) to help you engage effectively with younger people in climate change conversations.

Our plan is this:

-first, we will spend time doing an exercise to help all of us go in to our own feelings on the matter of climate change. We’re doing this because each time we met to plan this salon we ended up in that discussion….so we figured – it was likely to happen with you too – so why not build it in right from the start.

-second, we will direct you to some stories from our research. This is a strong and rich feature of this afternoon.

-then we’ll share with you what we found in the literature on this topic.

-we will provide you with the opportunity to practice having these conversations.

-at the end of the day, we will give you the Tool Kit to take home.

2. OPENING EXERCISE: exploring our own feelings about climate change.

WORKSHEET – What conversations do we have with ourselves about climate change and its impact on younger people.

Individual work, dyad work (work in pairs), whole group work.

Climate change is a complex problem and confronting it is not an easy task. Today, as we work together to share our stories, thoughts, hopes and fears let’s step back from the extremes of denial and fatalism and embrace this quest to listen to and encourage both ourselves and our young people.

Instructions:

As an individual, think about and write down your responses to the two worksheet questions. (10 minutes)
Find someone else and discuss your shared thoughts. (15 minutes)
Provide feedback when the whole group convenes again. (15 minutes)

This is what salon participants said in response to our worksheet questions.

1. What fears/concerns do you hold for younger people re the impact of climate change on them?

2. What hopes/possibilities do you bring to counteract your own fears and despair for their future?

-that kids will feel “we’re just kids”

-young people get caught up in consumerism

-technology (social media, phones) results in young people not being in touch

-conspiracy theories being told to kids

-that we will be overrun by climate refugees

-the scarcity of resources will bring war

-kids will have to pay for the costly clean up of natural disasters

-that kids will feel the burden lies on them to fix this

-that people will be so overwhelmed they will be frozen

-youth are not ready or able to vote in the better politicians

-the impact on people’s mental health

-how might the lack of progress on the Paris Accord impact on people’s sense of hope and forward motion

-I am afraid I will never have grandchildren.

-the possibility of young people being able to change the conversation

-that there are already changes being made

-classroom resources, environment curriculum for k-12

-sustainable business practices will succeed because they are good

-science based targets

-kids are learning to ask their own questions.

5. WHAT DOES THE LITERATURE TELL US?

In this section, we will:

Summarize the key themes from the literature.
Tell you three stories that illustrate key points about climate change conversations.
Review pointers that we distilled from the survey of DSF staff and young people so that you will be prepared to do some practice conversations.

Summary of key themes in the literature

There is a large amount of literature in a range of media and the amount is growing rapidly – this is a subject that is attracting a lot of interest, especially among parents, educators, NGOs, service groups, community activists and so on.

As organizers of this salon wanted to make it as easy as possible for you to leave feeling confident that you could have meaningful conversations with younger people about climate change so will be giving you a small gift as you leave – a Tool Kit document that summarizes succinctly the key themes in the literature and provides you with useful links for more information.

Theme No 1: Climate change is a topic that can make children feel fearful and anxious, but it is possible to reduce their fears and anxieties.

Children with strong family connections are less likely to be traumatized by discussions on this topic.
Related to research that demonstrates that we must help students to believe in themselves.

Theme No 2: Adults often find conversations about climate change difficult and uncomfortable, but there is an increasing amount of helpful advice to help them to do a good job.

The organization 1 million women was set up to build a global community of women committed to fighting climate change with their daily actions. All women can join free of charge to help address the “climate emergency that is going to take all of us to get out of” to use their terms. This organization focuses on preparing kids to deal with a topic that adults find scary and children find worrying, confusing and they may be already angry with their parents for leaving them with a huge mess to clean up.
5 strategies

Emphasize action
Connect with nature
Talk about animals
Get involved in community
Make it a lifelong lesson

Messages need to be positive and highlight opportunities to engage in activities to address the challenges of climate change.
Fearful messages often fail.
Climate change should be portrayed as a human issue with many human strengths and weaknesses.

Theme No. 3: Children’s developmental levels vary, but considerable work has been done on age-appropriate messages.

One organization that has contributed some particularly helpful direction is the Peggy Notabaert Nature Museum in Chicago. The museum is well regarded for its immersive exhibits, its family events and its in-depth education programs. Their focus is to help children develop a sense of responsibility and a passion for the earth.
It is important to ensure that messages are ‘age-appropriate’ – simple concrete examples for the young and more abstract and complex ideas for older children.
For children aged 2-5 we should focus on our homes within a nature context.
For children aged 6-9 we can extend the focus to show how what we do in our homes can affect nature and how nature can affect our homes.
For children aged 10 to 12 we can further extend the thinking to address the theme that the climate changing and that they can change as well.

Three stories that illustrate key points

Story 1: Danielle Cranmer (Rainforest Alliance) explains how children can become upset by adult explanations about science.

Danielle Cranmer is married to a physicist who teaches at New York University. One day he was telling their three-year-old son about the life cycle of the stars. All is going very well until he casually mentions that in about 5 billion years the sun will become a flaming red mass that will engulf the earth in fire. After a brief pause the three-year-old broke into hysterical crying and his anxiety continued for several months. We should not underestimate the impact of statements that we as adults might not consider to be disturbing.

Story 2: Danielle Cranmer explains how as a climate change specialist she spoke to her own children about climate change.

Although she is a climate change specialist Danielle Cranmer found that she was very reticent to discuss the subject with her three children. She decided to consult several of her colleagues at the Rainforest Alliance who focus on conversation with children so that she could come up with some useful tips. The five tips that she came up with a clear, informative and practical.

Arm yourself with facts – so many resources available.
Start small – tangible, carbon cycle central to climate science.
Involve others – teachers, scouts, church groups.
Show success stories – Children’s Trust suing government.
Encourage action – measure carbon footprint.

Story 3: The work of the Sightline Institute brings a range of useful examples of how various types of specialists spoke with their own children about climate change.

The Sightline Institute in Seattle was set up 25 years ago as a think tank for aimed at making the Pacific Northwest a model of sustainability – environmentally sound, economically vibrant and socially just. Their online presentation entitled Wisdom for talking to kids about climate change provides a diversity of specialists who present their ideas based on their own experiences with children of various ages,

Pointers based on survey of DSF staff and young people

The responses from this survey undertaken for this salon provides useful insights about two facets of climate change conversations with younger people:

(1) deciding what you are going to say (that’s the CONTENT) and

(2) deciding how you are going to say it (that’s the DELIVERY METHOD).

Looking first at the Content of the conversation– what you say

Using facts, e.g., local events – flooding, fires
Using feelings, e.g., optimism about value of personal changes
Using stories, e.g., examples of three stories given above
Using encouragement/support, e.g., pointing out the value of individual actions to reduce carbon footprint
Using questions, e.g., Could you ride your bicycle to the park rather than ask your parents to drive you there?
Using ‘What if” statements, e.g., What if we tried to make some small changes at home that would mean that our family uses less electricity?
Using ideas about action, e.g., Would you like to try wearing a warmer sweater rather than turning up the thermostat when you are at home?

Then there is the Delivery Method – how you say it. There are four factors that specifically focus on the younger person in the conversation.

The main factor that comes up in the literature is the age of the younger person because of the importance of age-appropriate messages.
Also factors are the relationship to the person, there would likely be a difference between how a parent and how a science teacher would address the topic and the venue in which the conversation takes place, especially the differences between a one-on-one conversation at home as opposed to a classroom discussion.
A final factor that can have a bearing on the conversation is the personality of the young person – ranging from self-confident and positive to shy and pessimistic.

There are also a series of factors that affect how the conversation is delivered by the older person, reflecting in part the person’s personality and background. For example, you could be influenced by your personal feelings, your political perspectives, your skills in openly questioning and honestly assessing an issue and various factors more associated with empathy such as sensing what sort of a response is being sought, listening to really hear what the younger person is saying and ability to let go of personal stances as well as cross-cultural sensitivities.

SOME EXAMPLES OF WHAT THE LITERATURE TELLS US about talking to younger people about climate change

From: How to talk to a 5 year old about Climate Change – ThinkProgress

“When we talk to our kids, we have to explain the science of what’s happening…but it is important to quickly pivot to what we can do to solve it.” Lisa Hoyos, co-founder of Climate Parents.

It is perfectly understandable for parents to hesitate talking about climate change with young children. A report from the American Psychological Association and ecoAmerica said that children “tend to be especially vulnerable to the psychological impacts of climate change, especially those related to stress and anxiety.” …. It would be a mistake to minimize the role parents can play in talking about such topics. Psychiatric epidemiologist Helen Berry has found children who do not feel connected to their families and communities risk being more traumatized by climate related natural disasters than better connected kids.

From Talking with Children about Climate change – Environmental Centre, Dr Lawrence Rosen

Craft the message in sync with your child’s developmental stage. Young children need simple concrete examples that don’t scare them. Teens can handle more abstract and complex information.

Be positive: fear-based approaches have not worked. There are notable social and economic co-benefits to dealing with climate change. Help kids focus on opportunities to do good in their neighbourhoods.

Reduce polarization: climate change is more than a political issue – it is a human issue. To model effective climate change strategies for our kids, we must see that those who deny it are real people, with real fears and wishes, just like us. No progress is made by demonizing others.

From How to Talk to your kids about Climate Change – One Million Women (Australia)

Connect with nature: this reinforces the sense that humans are part of nature, not separate to it. Fostering this connection between your children and nature is a way to move them to want to protect it.

Talk about animals: children’s love of animals is a perfect segue into climate change – no matter what animal they love, they will likely want to know how to protect it.

Emphasize action/start in your home: a stream of facts out of nowhere is going to either not have an impact at all or really freak them out. Start the conversation in your home by taking action in the home and explaining the reasons behind it…from putting stuff in your compost, not using plastic…

Get involved in the community: show your kids that we aren’t alone and that there is support available…go on a march, join a cleanup crew, volunteer at a local garden.

Make it a life- long lesson: don’t make climate action a novelty, make it the norm – a habit to carry on.

FROM talking to children about climate change: Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, Chicago

For ages 2-5 years: Focus on “We share our homes with nature”

Introducing very young children to nature from the start will provide the groundwork for a growing understanding of the environment as they get older. Concrete familiar ideas such as home provide a starting point for very young children to engage with nature on a personal level. Help children recognize the ways and places nature is present in their own homes and lives. Talk about nature in and around your home. Look in your back yard, out your windows, or in familiar nearby outdoor areas. Talk about how these spaces that feel like home to you might also feel like home to other animals.

Guiding questions

Activities at home

Examples

-which animals live outside near us?

-Do we share our own home with any plants or animals?

-what do you think ‘home’ looks like to them?

-what makes that place a good home for them?

-how does that home help them live and be comfortable?

-how do our own homes help us live and be comfortable?

-go on a nature walk, search for animal homes in your area.

-gather natural materials and build your favourite animal home

-use those materials to build a model house that a person might like to live in.

-how do people and animals use things from their environment to make homes they want to live in?

-birds, squirrels and insects are common to parks and yards.

-birds build safe and comfortable nests using twigs and other materials they find

-squirrels build nests

-bugs might build hives or burrow in the ground

-all of these animals use what the environment provides to have a home that is the best fit for the way they live.

For ages 6-9 years: Introducing Human Impact

Children of this age level are old enough to start exploring cause and effect: the ways nature affects their daily lives, and the idea that humans can also impact nature. Start with simple causes that have clear effects. For instance, weather events (rain/snow, a very hot/cold day) can lead to conversations about how weather, as part of nature, affects your day to day lives. Meanwhile human actions like cutting down trees or picking up litter have obvious and direct impacts on nature. This is a good time to introduce the idea of climate change (what the weather is ‘always’ like, over a long period of time) as an early prelude to discussing how climate can change.

Guiding questions

Activities at home

Examples

-does the weather ever change what you do?

-what would you do differently on a sunny day than you would on a rainy or snowy day?

-where do you go to be in nature and what do you do there? Does it look the same each time you visit? What is the same or different? Does nature notice you were there?

-how can you protect that nature you go to?

-set up a home rain catcher or thermometer.

-keep a weather journal, check to see how weather changes day to day.

-heavy rain can cause floods in our own house (nature affecting a human). When people use lots of water during a rainstorm they add a lot of water down the drain and flooding can get worse (humans affecting nature).

For ages 10-12 years: Looking to the Future

The climate is changing and we can too. By this age children are generally ready for conversations specifically about climate change. Begin with honest, simple facts: human actions over a long period of time have changed the climate around the world, and it will continue to change in the future. Together you can gradually explore more details about which human actions have created what changes and how. Focus on empowering the younger person with actions they can take. How can you adapt to live with a changing climate? Talk about specific human actions that can impact the climate, like energy use and transportation, and choices you can make in your own lives so that the climate doesn’t change even more.

Guiding questions

Activities at home

Examples

-what would it be like if it rained all the time?

-what would happen to your neighbourhood and everything that lives there?

-what are some good ways to deal with the problems that arise from too much rain?

-what if it never rained at all?

-what are some things we use electricity for?

-can you think of ways to do those things with less electricity?

-talk about things that your family/group does every day that might have an impact on climate change.

-decide on a few things that you can do differently together that will help reduce climate change in the future.

-how do you make a plan that is good for the environment that you can stick with over a long time?

-climate change can make summertime even hotter, so we want to use air conditioners a lot.

-Unfortunately, producing electricity has a big impact on climate change and air conditioners use more electricity than almost anything else in a home, so turning it on can make the problem even worse.

– Luckily, there are other ways to cool down. Some good ideas are: building well-insulated houses, using fans, or only air conditioning a few rooms instead of a whole house.

Some useful links

5 Pro Tips for Talking to Kids About Climate Change (Without Freaking them out) I Danielle Cranmer, Rainforest Alliance

https://www.rainforest-alliance.org/articles/how-to-talk-to-kids-about-climate-change

How To Talk To Your Kids About Climate Change | 1 Million Women https://www.1millionwomen.com.au/blog/how-talk-your-kids-about-climate-change/

Wisdom for talking to kids about climate change I Sightline Institute http://www.sightline.org/2016/12/09/wisdom-for-talking-to-kids-about-climate-change/

Talking to Children about Climate Change | Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum www.naturemuseum.org › Nature & Science in Action › Sustainability Resources

Laurie David and Cambria Gordon The Down-to-earth Guide to Global Warming

https://www.amazon.ca/Down-Earth-Guide-Global-Warming/dp/04390249\

How To Talk To A 5-Year-Old About Climate Change – ThinkProgress

https://thinkprogress.org/how-to-talk-to-a-5-year-old-about-climate-change-ef8ec30b…

SUGGESTED GUIDELINES for talking with younger people about climate change developed by the Suzuki Elders, March 2018

CONTENT (what you say) can consist of:

DELIVERY METHOD (how you say it) is shaped by:

Facts/knowledge

Heart/feelings

Stories/insights

Encouragement/support

Questions to ask, share

Wonderings/’what if?’

Ideas about action, “What we can do…What can we do?”

Relationship you have with the person (teacher, parent, relative, friend, leader, mentor)

Developmental age of younger person (what are they able to take in/understand, developmental changes over time)

Personality type of the younger person (naturally fearful? Sensitive? Activist orientation? Problem solver? Curious? )

Venue (family dining table, school, camp, on a walk, classroom project, doing a public speech)

Our own personal feelings about the issue. (guilt, sadness, positivist, cynical, hopeful, fearful)

Our own political stance on the issue. (right, left, centrist, good people/bad people or black/white world view.)

Recognition/knowledge of cultural origins of younger people we are talking with.

Our own ability to be open to questioning ourselves and the world around us.

Our own ability to appropriately ask questions of younger people (and probe as necessary).

Our own ability to be honest, and transparent in saying what we personally) know and don’t know.

Our own ability to sense when comfort is needed and to provide it.

Our own ability to listen….and listen some more.

Our own ability to know when to stop talking – to let go.

6. FINAL PRACTICE EXERCISE

(Note: at the exercise end we did not ask participants to report back to the whole group)

Practice: Responding to questions and wonderings from younger people about climate change.

Purpose: Practice

Whole group, triads. Provide participants with questions we have already heard from young people; generate more from whole group. (see below) Break into triads. Task: “From what you’ve heard today, what might you say in response to some of these questions…and how”

One person asks the Q (pretends to be a kid), one person responds, one person observes. Three then discuss. 10 minutes max, each person gets a turn.

10 min max

35 min

Person introduces, asks for questions they’ve heard from kids. Person writes these on flip. Then group breaks into triads for the practice.

Questions that younger people might ask us, or already have

Where is all the snow coming from?
If we have PARIS why are we still talking pipelines?
What is our carbon footprint?
Why don’t people take these things more seriously, why don’t we elect people who will?
Will my individual actions have an impact?
Are we too far down the road?
What models of a sustainable world are out there?
Is all the ice at the north pole going to disappear?
Why are we having all these wildfires?
Are the polar bears going to die?
What can I do to help?
Why did you let this happen?
Will we run out of water?
I want to move to a safe place. Where is a safe place?

7. SALON CONCLUSION

To close off, we had three goals today,

To explore our own fear and despair – and hopes about climate change in order to inform our potential discussions about climate change with younger people.
To help you learn how to engage with ‘youngers’ in a climate change conversation that is useful to them.
3. To provide you with tools (resources, stories, practice) to help you engage effectively with younger people in climate change conversations.

Finally, we have two last stories to share with you. The first is from a parent – a very grounded and practical parent. This is what he told us:

“my advice – cook dinner and sit down at the dinner table and talk to each other – about everything. Go for walks, get together with friends and neighbours. Just be together and see what comes up. Don’t start with climate change on the agenda per se. Listen. Maybe do an interview with your kids “what do you think of….” and start from there. And above all…….listen to them.”

This is from a student who provided what we think is a very mature and thoughtful comment: “don’t assume kids have no power, or that they won’t or can’t understand. Explain something so that it CAN be understood, but don’t dumb it down. Make it so that we will understand. AND don’t just tell us the issues, the challenges and the problems that the world faces and that it is on us to fix it somehow. Teach us to be strong, resilient, caring and thoughtful in the face of these mountains, and to be better people for a better world. Teach us what we need to do, but also teach with us who we need to be.”

EVALUATION FORM: Talking with younger people about climate change

The goals of today’s presentation are:

a. To explore our own fear, despair, hopes about climate change in order to inform our potential discussions about climate change with younger people.

b. To learn how to engage with ‘youngers’ in a climate change conversation that is useful to them.

c. To provide participants with tools (resources, stories, practice) to help them engage effectively with younger people in climate change conversations.

These goals were met for me: (circle the number that best suits)

Not met somewhat met well met

Goal a. 1 2 3 4 5

Goal b. 1 2 3 4 5

Goal c. 1 2 3 4 5

The most important thing or idea you learned from today’s presentation was:
What, if anything, might you do or think about differently as a result of what you learned from today’s presentation?
If you could change anything about today’s session, what would it be? (content, presentation, location, other)

EVALUATION RESULTS: Talking with younger people about climate change

(31 participants, 17 evaluations N=17)

The salon goals were met for me: (circle the number that best suits)

Not met somewhat met well met

Goal a. 1 2 3 4 (25%) 5 (75%)

Goal b. 1 2 (2%) 3 (12%) 4 (34%) 5 (50%)

Goal c. 1 2 3 (4%) 4 (43%) 5 (53%)

Feel free to comment on your rating:

-I think more modelling on how to engage would be helpful (rated goal b at 3)
-more focus on teens and young adults, less on 3-12 year olds (rated goal b at 2)
-today is the beginning of a process of engagement and listening (rated all goals at 5)
-lovely balance, good material and presenters (all goals rated at 5)

The most important thing or idea you learned from today’s presentation was:

About hope
-to be hopeful and know that small actions help
-the hope and positive information is out there. We just keep it up!
-it gives me the intellectual space and time to think more on this topic, which is positive
-we need to understand the problems, but mostly we need to have positive actions to give hope
-hearing ‘real’ stories from ‘real’ people was illuminating, and made me realize I could do this

Varying ideas/methods to use when talking with younger people about climate change.

-the ‘good grief’ idea
-slow down process of communicating
-‘normalize’ discussion
-that some young people DO ask about climate change
-how to engage younger people in a conversation about climate change in a considered manner. Some good tips.
-strong families/have dinner together
-importance of working with and through schools, make it easy for teacher
-the importance of teaching resiliency
-must propose opportunities for action to kids – give agency

What, if anything, might you do or think about differently as a result of what you learned from today’s presentation?

About myself

-acknowledge fear and try to find positive hope
-foster resiliency in myself
-make more time for conversations, and LISTEN
-be more inclined to participate in other related events

About actions/ideas

-climate change is an opportunity as well as a threat
-that children and adults are capable of great change
-create steps to involve the entire school (teacher)

If you could change anything about today’s session, what would it be?:

Content?

-how to talk to teens, age 13-18
-almost too much. So happy to have links for future reference
-resources that are available – I will look into those

Presentation?

-excellent, liked different voices for stories, good flow, could have spent a day.
-fine, the presentations were all very good
-well organized

Location?
-fine (2)
-accessible to transit, convenient

Talking to Youth Toolkit PDF

WORKSHEET – What conversations do we have with ourselves about climate change and its impact on younger people.

Individual work, dyad work, whole group work.

Climate change is a complex problem and confronting it is not an easy task. Today, as we work together to share our stories, thoughts, hopes and fears let’s step back from denial and fatalism as we embrace this quest to listen to and encourage both ourselves and our young people.

Instructions:

As an individual, think about and write down your responses to the two worksheet questions. (10 minutes)
Find someone else and discuss your shared thoughts. (15 minutes)
Provide feedback when the whole group convenes again. (15 minutes)

1. What fears/concerns do you hold for younger people re the impact of climate change on them?

2. What hopes/possibilities do you bring to counteract your own fears and despair for their future?

Suzuki Elder Salon March 1, 2018

”Talking with younger people about climate change” – Suggested Guidelines.