Ec-fiction for middle-grade readers
Climate Anxiety into Eco Mysteries and Empowerment
19/09/26 09:45 Filed in: Environmental Education
As both an author and former educator, I’ve become increasingly interested in a question facing anyone writing about or teaching about climate change for young teens: How do we tell the truth about what’s happening in the natural world without leaving children frightened and powerless?
Classroom and outdoor education teachers are indeed seeking ways to approach discussions about the consequences of climate change without sugarcoating the truth or provoking climate anxiety. In book 3 of my climate trilogy, In A Changing World, the young teen protagonist and their teachers model ways to approach this difficult question.
Written for readers ages 10–14, In a Changing World, brings together four interconnected ecological mysteries involving monarch butterflies migration, hurricane adaptation in anoles, the future of Joshua trees, and changing feeding patterns among Kodiak brown bears.
The teens follow clues to mysteries they observe in nature, investigate the science behind what is happening in their communities, and discover ways they can respond. (I have included discussion and educator resources designed to help teachers move from reading the stories to investigating the real-world, real science and encouraging student empowerment. Move to End?)
My approach is to turn the environmental problem into a mystery. Instead of beginning with “the climate is changing and here are the dire consequences,”
I ask young readers: Why are the monarchs disappearing? How can tiny lizards survive increasingly powerful hurricanes? Can Joshua trees adapt to a hotter, drier future? Why would Kodiak bears abandon salmon for berries? The young characters become Eco Detectives. They observe, question, follow evidence, make mistakes, seek help from scientists and their communities, and eventually discover that understanding a problem gives them the power to respond to it.
The progression I hope young readers experience is: Anxiety → Curiosity → Investigation →Understanding → Agency → Hope.
Classroom and outdoor education teachers are indeed seeking ways to approach discussions about the consequences of climate change without sugarcoating the truth or provoking climate anxiety. In book 3 of my climate trilogy, In A Changing World, the young teen protagonist and their teachers model ways to approach this difficult question.
Written for readers ages 10–14, In a Changing World, brings together four interconnected ecological mysteries involving monarch butterflies migration, hurricane adaptation in anoles, the future of Joshua trees, and changing feeding patterns among Kodiak brown bears.
The teens follow clues to mysteries they observe in nature, investigate the science behind what is happening in their communities, and discover ways they can respond. (I have included discussion and educator resources designed to help teachers move from reading the stories to investigating the real-world, real science and encouraging student empowerment. Move to End?)
My approach is to turn the environmental problem into a mystery. Instead of beginning with “the climate is changing and here are the dire consequences,”
I ask young readers: Why are the monarchs disappearing? How can tiny lizards survive increasingly powerful hurricanes? Can Joshua trees adapt to a hotter, drier future? Why would Kodiak bears abandon salmon for berries? The young characters become Eco Detectives. They observe, question, follow evidence, make mistakes, seek help from scientists and their communities, and eventually discover that understanding a problem gives them the power to respond to it.
The progression I hope young readers experience is: Anxiety → Curiosity → Investigation →Understanding → Agency → Hope.