What is it about?
Climate change is no longer a distant threat; young people are already feeling its effects. This article explores how climate change fuels anxiety, fear, and grief in students and how educators can respond. Drawing on classroom and campus experience, it explains how teachers can balance sharing the truth about the climate crisis with protecting students’ mental health. The article highlights practical strategies, including student activism, outdoor learning, and community connection, that empower young people to turn fear into hope and action.
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Why is it important?
Today’s students will bear the brunt of the climate crisis, and many already feel the weight of that reality. Without support, they risk developing a sense of fatalism and disconnection that can undermine both their mental health and their capacity for action. Educators play a critical role in breaking this cycle. By combining honest conversations about climate change with opportunities for empowerment and connection, we can help students transform fear into purpose. This is about more than environmental education — it is about safeguarding the mental health of a generation and equipping them with the skills and mindset to lead. The choices we make in schools today will shape how young people respond to one of the greatest challenges humanity has ever faced.
Perspectives
As someone who has spent more than 50 years working with teens and their teachers, I have seen firsthand how sensitive students are to the world around them. Even when we think we are protecting them by keeping adult concerns at a distance, young people are listening and absorbing. Climate change is not a topic they can avoid; it is the subtext of their lives, coloring their hopes for the future. My work founding and leading The Grauer School has shown me how powerful it can be when students are connected with nature and empowered to act. Whether through spending time outdoors, learning about indigenous knowledge, or organizing climate walkouts, these experiences give students the resilience to face uncertainty. I know that educators sometimes worry about burdening students with difficult truths. But I have also learned that withholding information can erode trust. When we give students the facts — and help them see how their actions matter — we are protecting their childhood, not stealing it. We are teaching them courage. And in my view, that is one of the most important things an educator can do.
STUART GRAUER
The Grauer School
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Climate change: The thief of childhood, Phi Delta Kappan, March 2020, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/0031721720917541.
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