Supporting Students' Emotional Wellbeing while Teaching Climate Change Curriculum

Numerous researchers have described climate change as the single greatest threat to humanity. In 2022, a survey conducted by Inside Higher Ed and College Pulse reported that at least 81% of students are worried about climate change, and many consider campus sustainability when deciding where to attend college. As concerns regarding climate change have grown, so have the impacts on mental health, which are often categorized under terms such as climate anxiety and ecological grief. This has increased professional advocacy for climate change education in many disciplines across campuses. The Association for Counselor Educators recently proposed adding climate change/environmental justice competencies and curriculum standards for counselor education and supervision. Further, many universities are developing specific climate change degree programs and incorporating climate change education into general education coursework. The literature suggests that climate change education should be incorporated into every major on college campuses and in the K-12 curriculum standards. Incorporating mental health implications of climate change is a key component of climate change education. This presentation will provide an overview of mental health concerns related to climate change. It will provide strategies from positive psychology to support students’ well-being while meeting the need to incorporate climate change education into coursework. This practical project hopes to contribute to climate change advocacy by demonstrating the need for climate change education standards to be developed across disciplines while supporting students’ emotional well-being and offering exercises in meaning-making and resilience. In the future, this exploratory study plans to gather data using a quasi-experimental pre/post design comparing students' self-reports on climate anxiety, ecological grief, and resilience measures in two courses offered at UM. The data will help inform teaching practices and curriculum standards in climate change education.