What can schools do to make a meaningful difference in the face of the escalating climate and biodiversity crises?
It starts with understanding what is living in the hearts and minds of your students and your staff. Consider offering a short poll asking for one, two or a few words to answer: how are you feeling about the climate and biodiversity crises? Then unpack the results with them. Be sincere in your interest. Invite them to talk together, across departments, stakeholder groups, and ages.
In our experience, when we ask this question we find 3 things:
1. Difficult emotions. People across the school, all ages, are feeling worry, frustration, fear, and despair.
When you ask your students, be prepared to hear that they are also feeling betrayed and angry at all of us who have created the increasingly serious situation in which they find themselves.
When we asked about 50 middle-school girls at a student leadership event for climate and nature action this past May, here’s what they said.
2. Helplessness. Most people also express feeling helpless – as though all the earnest bike-riding and school gardening and Earth Day events are ultimately a drop in the ocean.
3. Yearning for a way to contribute. They would love to be shown meaningful, hope-filled ways to contribute to solutions, where they can truly make a difference.
Many mental health professionals point to meaningful action, in community, as an important antidote to the eco-despair we are all feeling.
As with most things we teach, it is ideal if schools can “walk the talk”. This is certainly true in our sustainability work. Sometimes we invite school leaders to imagine milestone celebrations in the next couple of decades. What do you want those commemorative speeches to be highlighting, as they look back on how your school stepped up in this pivotal moment in time?
For us at DoorNumberOne.org we believe in doing more than simply walking the talk. We believe schools can lead their communities.
If you want to take your sustainability action to the next level, and help your students and staff to find meaningful ways to contribute to solutions, we invite you to consider:
Could you integrate and amplify what your school is already doing, and build on that work?
Could you set measurable goals for 2030, 2040 and 2050, consistent with local, regional and global goals for reducing climate pollution, protecting and enhancing biodiversity, lifting up those most affected, and ultimately contributing to a healthy future?
Could you set your school on a path as a climate-forward institution, with Indigenous peoples, community members, and nature as your co-creators and guides?
Could your school become a hub for innovative, aspirational, hope-filled, meaningful climate and nature action in your community?
From our experience working with schools, we know that schools can do all these things and more.
At the end of our day spent with those 50 middle school girls, we asked them to again share their thoughts and feelings. This one entry sums up their responses.
Even with all the great speakers, workshops and time together with their like-minded peers, we couldn’t expect that one day would make them feel much better. These young people GET IT. They are not without hope, but they are very legitimately worried, and they need to see much bigger change around them, including at school where they spend so much of their time, before resolving their fears.
DoorNumberOne.org is helping schools on this path of leadership and hope-filled action towards a thriving future for all.
We are building a movement too exciting to resist and too powerful to ignore. We hope you will join us.
Check out our Climate Action Accelerator Program, now enrolling fall and winter cohorts.
#buildingamovement