General Archives

Picture shows a man and child sitting in silhouette watching a winter sunrise over a lake

Eco-anxiety

5 April 2024/in General, Materials Link/by Oliver Prato

How do we help young people who feel paralysed with fear about their future?

We have created this page with the links to organisations and resources with the aim to help teachers and parents understand eco-anxiety and help young people cope with the existential threats posed by our modern way of life.

Eco-Anxiety and Young People

You may have heard the term “Eco-anxiety” used recently, especially in relation to young people worried about the state of the world and worried that their future will be made much worse by climate change and environmental destruction. Listen to the podcasts below and watch the 2018 TED talk (right) from Greta Thunberg about her struggle with mental health and activism against climate change.

Immediate Help

If you are worried about the safety of a child in Devon and want to speak to someone, or if you are a child worried about your own safety, please contact the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) on 0345 155 1071 or email mashsecure@devon.gov.uk and give as much information as you can.

If a child is at immediate risk contact the police on 999.

If you are a professional, you should make a MASH contact (previously a MASH enquiry). Please see the guidance on making a MASH contact.

Child laying down and thinking with an up close focused image on her eye.

Humans are pre-programmed to become anxious when they identify a threat. This has helped us for millennia, in producing adrenaline that helps us run fast to escape from dangerous predators like lions and tigers or freezing to hide from danger.

Young people are not immune to anxiety, in fact they may be at higher risk of exposure to threats via social media, which can also magnify their appearance through the echo chamber effect.

Unfortunately, environmental destruction and climate change are not short term problems that can be resolved quickly by running away or hiding. Waiting them out won’t work to resolve our eco-anxiety either – we have to change our own behaviours and influence change within our society to resolve them. We have to find individual ways to cope with these existential threats.

Young people feel more exposed to these issues as they have more of their lives ahead of them than older people. They know their own lives will be impacted by resource issues and climate change. This makes young people massive stakeholders in the future and more vulnerable to eco-anxiety.

Here is a playlist we think you might find useful when talking about eco-anxiety with young people:

How do We Talk to Children About Climate Change

Eco Anxiety

The Solutions

The pathway from a stressed and anxious child to a calm and happy one will take time and patience, no matter what has caused the anxiety. But children are resilient creatures, so given the right help and reassurance and provided parents, teachers and other professionals work together then they should be able to navigate their path to recovery. Children may not be able to explain what is making them anxious, or it may be a combination of worries that have triggered anxious behaviour. Below are the stages to help children recover from stress and anxiety.

Noticing Anxiety in Children

Young children may not realise that they are feeling anxious or know what is causing it. Look out for the following signs:

irritability, being tearful or clingy
having problems sleeping
waking in the night
wetting the bed (especially if they were previously dry)
having bad dreams

Older children may show different symptoms:

lacking confidence to try new things or seeming unable to face simple, everyday challenges
finding it hard to concentrate
having problems with sleeping or eating
becoming angry for no apparent reason
having a lot of negative thoughts, or keep thinking that bad things are going to happen
starting to avoid everyday activities, such as seeing friends, going out in public or going to school

Talk to the child

There may be a simple explanation for anxiety and it may be easy to resolve the problem, for example worrying about appearing in a school play or worried about changing seat in the classroom. The important thing is to reassure them and explain that you understand.

It may be a good idea to explain what lies behind their body’s response to their worrying about something. There are some lovely videos on Youtube that may help (see our Eco-anxiety playlist on Youtube).

Find solutions

Anxiety about climate change and the plastic pollution problem can feel overwhelming, but there are ways to help alleviate those feelings of helplessness. Many children are turning to activism to help them feel less anxious about the future.

Greta Thunberg is a great example. She was paralysed by Eco-anxiety, but found her voice on the world stage by striking from school every Friday. You don’t have to become an internationally recognised activist to make a difference – see our Local Action pages some ideas of ways to help in your local community.

Further help

If the child or teen becomes increasingly unwell due to anxiety then it is time to ask for professional help. The organisations listed on the right hand side of the page here will be able to offer support and guidance. Young people should never feel that they are alone in mental health issues and asking for help is the first step to getting well again.

Teachers

Compost Life Cycle

6 December 2023/in Compost, Food Waste, General, KS1/by Lucy Mottram

This sheet will help younger children (KS1) understand the Grow-Cook-Eat-Compost cycle. It links to National Curriculum Science in Year 1 & 2: Plants.

There’s also a simple pea and bean recipe below to help enjoy a small crop of peas and beans from a school garden.

Minibeast Colouring Sheet

6 December 2023/in Cardboard, Compost, Food Waste, General, Wood/by Lucy Mottram

We have created these sheets for younger children as part of our work about composting and food waste. All these creatures live in compost and help it change from food waste, twigs and leaves into wonderful food for plants.

Compost Curriculum

8 April 2022/in Cardboard, Compost, Food Waste, General, Wood/by Lucy Mottram

Compost Curriculum Handbook

It doesn’t matter if you are a complete beginner, or a seasoned rotter; whether you have a ‘state of the art’ composter, or a neglected plastic ‘Dalek’ in the corner of the playground.

This handbook supports teachers to use composting as an inspiring teaching resource throughout the school year. For each month it contains a curriculum-linked KS2 lesson plan and an Eco Team activity, plus a wealth of supporting documents to bring composting to life for adults and pupils.

Recycling at Home

3 March 2021/in General, Materials Link/by Lucy Mottram

Use our Recycling at Home worksheet to help teach about responsibility for the environment as part of PSHE. With the help of the internet or a council recycling leaflet and student’s creativity they can make their own poster that showing their different waste containers, what goes in them, and when they are collected. Then encourage students to do the recycling at home, find out where the containers are stored and help take the recycling out to the street on the day it is collected.

Don’t forget to send us any pictures of any home challenges you tackle at @RecycleDevon on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook!

Download 3Rs at Home Worksheet: Recycling at Home

NOTE: This Activity Worksheet was first released as part of our series of 3Rs at Home worksheets created during the first coronavirus lockdown in Spring 2020, but is a stand-alone activity suitable for home schooling or teaching in-school.

Find related videos and links below:

Find out what district you live in

Click here for more information about your local council recycling service

Download Thank You Recycling Poster

Recycling Wordsearch

students talk through a problem in a team

Financial Awareness

2 March 2021/in General, Materials Link/by Lucy Mottram

Financial knowledge and decision-making skills use concepts from Maths and Computing to understand how to make decisions about what to buy and how to stay within a budget.

We have developed a project based learning activity to help KS3 and 4 students use real-world examples to practice financial decision-making skills. Our activity is based around reusable versus disposable products.

Comparing Reusable and Disposable Products

There are a variety of reusable products available which have disposable options as well. Use this comparison project to develop student’s budgeting and calculation skills. Many adults find this difficult, so they will develop important financial awareness skills with this engaging activity.

Subject: PSHE, Life Skills, Maths

Spotlight on: Comparison of costs of two options over time

Driving Question: How can I compare two similar products?

Process

Hold a discussion about money and budgeting. Ask students what they see their parents doing at home. Discuss ways of saving money, like going to different supermarkets for different offers, or comparing options using a price comparison website.
In groups ask students to brainstorm how many reusable products and their disposable options are available. Ask groups to share. Expect items like face masks, nappies, period products (see our pages on Reusable Period Products), handkerchiefs. More unusual ones might be ear protection, paper towels, toilet paper (family cloths are the reusable option!).
Ask the groups to choose one item to compare. Using computers and iPads ask students to start researching the costs of reusable and disposable items. Supermarket websites will have costs for the most easily available options like disposable nappies and period products. Specialist websites will sell reusable options.
Ask groups to compare the costs over a certain time period. This could be for the first 3 years of a child’s life for nappies or the period of time a person menstruates (about 40 years).
Ask students to prepare a presentation to the rest of the class comparing the costs. Students could also prepare a leaflet for the public or their families. They could even ask the school to send information home with families if they wished to.
Make sure students understand that the cost of products often does not represent their environmental cost, i.e. the cost of disposal of the item – e.g. nappies end up in black bin bags, which are burnt for energy in Devon. This is a very expensive process. Reusable products are better for the environment and can help save money too.

The text of this project based learning activity is also available as a Word document.

Project Based Learning: Comparing Reusable and Disposable Products