https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0443-1022
Abstract
Children experience and grapple with the ongoing effects of climate change in their daily lives. While they did not cause climate change nor should they have to solve it, children deserve educational opportunities to understand why and how it occurs as they prepare to address it. In this Methods and Strategies article, we share how children engaged in place-based art, science, and literacy activities designed to support them in further cultivating relationships with their ecological community and to communicate their findings with other children engaging in the same process across the three coastal communities of Boston, Toronto, and San Diego. Specifically, we highlight how crafting representations of their noticings and wonderings from family walks in their ecological communities supported children to analyze the interactions within ecosystems and express concern and care for the natural world as they engaged in the science practice of asking questions. We share how elementary teachers can support children in cultivating relationships with their local community as they make observations and ask questions to understand how climate change impacts their ecological communities.
Why did this year’s weather change so dramatically?! (Emmy, A Boston child) Will we ever run out of water? (Jemma, A San Diego child) In the middle of February, there should not be tulips sprouting. (Ellie, A Toronto child) Emmy’s question about Boston’s dramatic winter weather changes, Jemma’s wonder about San Diego’s water access, and Ellie’s concern about tulips sprouting during Toronto winter are jarring examples of children’s ecological observations and wonderings. Their comments mirror questions and concerns of children and families worldwide (Ross et al. Citation2022). Human action has caused significant damage to our precious ecosystems, resulting in climate consequences for everyone (Damico and Baildon Citation2022). Climate justice requires governmental, corporate, and societal action at the global level. While such efforts lag, local communities have and continue to mitigate and adapt to the devastating effects of climate change. Although we resist burdening children as responsible for climate justice work, we know elementary-aged learners need support to understand the ecological changes they witness locally and to act on the relentless trauma caused to Earth and all that is within it.
In this article, we share how children in three coastal communities—Boston, Toronto, and San Diego—deepened relationships with their ecological community as they engaged in place-based art, science, and literacy activities and communicated their findings with peers in Coastal Climate Kid Collective. Specifically, we highlight how children, by crafting representations of their noticings and wonderings from walks in their ecological communities, analyzed ecosystem interactions, expressed concern and care for the natural world, and engaged in the science practice of asking questions. We then highlight how teachers might support children in cultivating ecological relationships locally as they use inquiry to understand how their communities are affected by and impact climate change.
About the Coastal Climate Kid Collective Project
Over 150 children in grades 1 to 6 participated in this out-of-school and family-engaged project. We mailed children four at-home art, science, and literacy seasonal kits. In each kit, we provided children with a guidebook that included an overview page, a list of safety tips, a Land Acknowledgement, a Curiosity Walk prompt, and two or more other thematic activities that incorporated art, science, and literacy. The boxed kits also included one or more ecologically oriented picture books for children to read as they completed a series of multisensory activities, like curiosity walks, interviews with plants and people, and mixed-media calls for climate justice.
Kits were seasonally and scientifically themed, and all necessary art, science, and literacy materials required to complete activities detailed in the guidebook were included (see ). We asked children to communicate their learning with us by returning crafts, like those we feature in this paper. Then, we shared their crafts publicly on the project website (see coastalclimatekids.com) and during cross-coastal web conferences we held with all children each season.
Table 1 Overview of kit themes and related curiosity walk materials.
The four kits are freely available on the project website. We encourage readers to access, review, and consider how these materials may be useful; however, in this article, we focus on a single activity included in each kit: curiosity walks. In doing so, we highlight how teachers might leverage topic-specific curiosity walks to support children’s learning.
What is a Curiosity Walk?
A curiosity walk is an activity that supports children—with trusted adults—to explore the ecological community in which they live. During the walk, they make observations and ask questions about things they notice. These walks can be open-ended activities or focused on specific performance expectations and curricular goals. Curiosity walks support children in noticing and wondering about the natural world in their community. Alternatively, if the outdoors is not accessible, children can make observations via a window or in whatever way that works for their families. Seasonally, children engaged with their ecological community through three key elements: (1) reading a picture book(s) related to the kit’s theme, (2) using and attending to their available senses while walking, and (3) communicating what they noticed and learned through crafted responses. Hence, curiosity walks provide a powerful opportunity and scaffolded approximation for children to use their senses, build on past experiences, and cultivate new knowledge and understandings with their families. Other educators and scholars have shown how nature-based walks focused on observing and sharing what you notice support science, community, and other meaningful learning outcomes (Marin and Bang Citation2018; Zimmerman and McClain Citation2016). We illustrate how crafting representations of their curiosity walks in their ecological communities supported children to analyze interactions within ecosystems and express concern and care for the natural world as they engaged in the science practice of asking questions.
In this article, we focus on the curiosity walks in the autumn and winter kits. The autumn kit focused on noticing; children read Alladin’s Outside, You Notice. Afterward, the children did a curiosity walk and illustrated their own version of Alladin’s book. In doing so, they pictorially represented what they observed and wondered and responded to a prompt (see ). Similarly, in winter, children explored water cycles through and across ecosystems. After reading Emily Kate Moon’s Drop: An Adventure through the Water Cycle, children took and captioned Polaroid photos during their curiosity walk. Throughout their curiosity walk, children investigated water’s role in and impact on their ecological community.
Figure 1 Excerpted responses from post-curiosity walk books.
Analyzing Interactions within Ecosystems
Children’s engagement in curiosity walks supported their analysis of interactions between and among humans, other organisms, and nonliving factors including climate phenomena. Children analyzed the ecological interdependence in ways specific to their interests, cares, and lives. shows how children attended to how aspects of our biosphere impact and rely on each other. Their noticings aligned with the Next Generation Science Standard (NGSS) third-grade performance expectation 3-LS4-3. Construct an argument with evidence that in a particular habitat, some organisms can survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all. For instance, Vee noticed that the fungi in the habitat required water to thrive. In Reef’s example, he highlighted how humans, stingrays, and birds were all interacting and impacting each other in the bay. Additionally, children leveraged NGSS crosscutting concepts (patterns, cause and effect, systems and system models, and energy and matter) as they analyzed the interactions and interdependence of biotic and abiotic components. Claire’s crafted response highlights the interplay of the stream behind her home and the animals within the community. Cumulatively, these three children’s responses demonstrate how children communicated such interactions after noticing them on curiosity walks.
Table 2 Excerpted responses demonstrating children’s analysis of interactions within local ecosystems.
Expressing Concern and Care for the Natural World
As children communicated in their post-walk crafts, they frequently highlighted concern and care for the natural world. Children’s concerns about the climate and ecosystems often mirrored decades-long, context-specific climate change concerns of their local communities. In this article’s opening, Bostonian Emmy’s question about big swings in winter weather, San Diegan Jemma’s worry about drought, and Torontonian Ellie’s awareness of the tulips premature arrival are but three examples of children’s climatic noticings and concerns. Similarly, other children expressed concern about how their neighbors seemingly lacked care for their ecological community, an idea Torontoian Hearts and San Diegan Victoria offered alongside their observation of garbage and litter in their extension of Alladin’s book ().
Important to note, however, is that although children often expressed concerns in their post-walk crafts, they also often noted appreciation for their ecological communities. Many shared the dynamic reality of their coastal communities, describing beauty, peace, and reciprocal interactions alongside challenges connected to human-caused climate change. Victoria’s image above highlights not just her concern about litter but also migrating birds and people walking on an amazing day. highlights Madison, Vee, and Ruby’s observations of the unique beauty on their winter curiosity walk.
Table 3 Excerpted responses demonstrating children’s care for the natural world.
Engaging in the Science Practice of Asking Questions
As children and their communities grapple with climate change, scientific practices need to be taken up to both understand what solutions are needed and to act toward climate justice. Throughout the curiosity walk process, the children worked to ask questions that were framed by the shared picture books and grounded in their observations of their ecological communities and their lived experiences.
As highlighted in , the children frequently asked questions that required both scientific and social answers, a necessity for addressing climate injustice. Asking questions is a critical skill that children should be supported in developing across their K–12 education. For instance, children as young as kindergarten should be supported to ask investigable questions about what they observe, while upper-elementary children should extend this practice by integrating prior knowledge and cause-and-effect questions (National Research Council (NRC) Citation2012). We noticed children often posed such questions, such as when San Diegan Esther, in her response to Alladin’s book, asked, “I wondered if the climate would change will the plants change, too.”
Figure 2 Excerpted responses demonstrating children’s engaging in the science practice of asking questions.
As noted by Bell et al. (Citation2012), engaging with one science practice often necessarily leads to a cascade of science practices as one makes sense of phenomena. In our project, children engaged in other science practices as they asked questions. For example, they obtained, evaluated, and communicated information from the picture books and their local experiences. In turn, they demonstrated how children can leverage multiple science practices to address climate injustice—along with their care for and concerns about the natural world—by asking questions with both scientific and social dimensions.
Designing Curiosity Walks for Climate Justice Education
Children deserve a thriving planet and support in making sense of what is and could be. Educators can use curiosity walks not only to extend children’s knowledge of ecological precarity and interdependency but also to prompt them to ask scientific questions in and out of school. Below, we offer an overview for designing a curiosity walk.
Theme: Decide on the conceptual theme of your curiosity walk. Earth, life, and physical science all can have climate justice connections. Some ideas include identifying ways humans and other living things have shaped the land around them, finding ways plants adapt to their climate, highlighting ways humans have already and could take action to support the local ecological community, and finding evidence of how abiotic factors cycle through biospheres. Additionally, you can go on walks focused on exploring what students have shared they are curious about or concerned about.
Book: Identify and select a relevant picture book; consider integrating this book into your literacy lesson. For assistance selecting a location-specific picture book, contact your public library. highlights the books we used.
Curiosity Walk: Invite children on a curiosity walk. Offer open-ended prompts connected to the theme and encourage children to leverage their past experiences as they explore what they are curious about. Have children record their observations and initial ideas using paper and pencil, a camera, or another tool during or after the walk.
Ensure children engage safely, by having them explore a specific area on school grounds where you can see everyone, or by walking together as a whole class. Alternatively, invite families to do a curiosity walk together, with accommodations for families who are unable to do so.
Crafting and communicating: Provide children with a diverse array of communicative tools and art supplies to share what they notice, observe, and hope for in their ecological community. Prompt children to craft a response that reflects what they observed and how it might connect to the climate justice theme you are exploring. Some ideas include creating additional pages for the shared picture book, composing letters and images from the perspective of plants or other beings in the ecosystem, or drawing a re-imagined ecological community that is thriving. After facilitating one curiosity walk, invite children to share ideas for future curiosity walks, too! For example, maybe the children were most excited about how organisms were interacting, so on your next walk, have the class focus on that. Finally, allow children to communicate their learning and messages within and beyond your classroom community by submitting them to the school newsletter, mailed letters, adult-supervised social media or the local new station.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT/FUNDING
Coastal Climate Kids draws upon research supported by the Government of Canada’s New Frontiers in Research Fund (NFRF).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Kathleen Schenkel
Kathleen Schenkel ([email protected]) is an assistant professor at San Diego State University.
Cassie J. Brownell
Cassie J. Brownell ([email protected]) is an assistant professor at the University of Toronto.
Jon M. Wargo
Jon M. Wargo ([email protected]) is an associate professor at the University of Michigan.
References
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- Damico, J. S., and M. C. Baildon. 2022. How to Confront Climate Denial: Literacy, Social Studies, and Climate Change. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
- Marin, A., and M. Bang. 2018. “Look It, This is How You Know:” Family Forest Walks as a Context for Knowledge-Building about the Natural World.” Cognition and Instruction 36 (2): 89–118.
- National Research Council (NRC). 2012. A framework for K–12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.
- Ross, D. L., K. Elliot, and J. Bonine. 2022. “Teaching Environmental Social Justice.” The Science Teacher 90 (2): 24–31.
- Zimmerman, H. T., and L. R. McClain. 2016. “Family Learning Outdoors: Guided Participation on a Nature Walk.” Journal of Research in Science Teaching 53 (6): 919–942.