Teaching for Sustainability: Climate Anxiety and Eco-Emotions

The educational sector has a pivotal role to play in addressing the sustainability crises we are facing by, inter alia, providing students with knowledge, skills, and competence development. As educators, how can we share information about sustainability crises including climate change and discuss the seriousness of these crises, while also providing support to deal with the emotional responses that may arise? How can we support each other in this endeavour and reduce the risk of feeling overwhelmed, emotionally drained, or numb? 

Climate anxiety is a combination of feelings that someone can experience when having concerns about climate change and the state of the planet. Climate anxiety is sometimes used as a concept to capture different emotional responses to sustainability crises in general. In addition to anxiety, being confronted with any sustainability crisis can give rise to different emotional responses, including anger, fear, guilt, and sadness. While emotional responses can cause great suffering, they can also be a productive force and indicate issues of importance, crossed boundaries, unmet needs, or personal values, all of which can provide us a direction to work towards individually and collaboratively.

Content and presenters

Join our seminar to learn more about how to support students, colleagues, and/or yourself in dealing with climate anxiety and other emotional responses to sustainability crises.

During the seminar, we will:

• Talk about emotional responses to sustainability crises including what climate anxiety is and how it differs from other types of anxiety.
• Learn about the latest research and practice within climate anxiety/eco-emotions including different approaches to deal with climate anxiety/eco-emotions.
• Discuss how to provide space for students to deal with their emotional responses and what support educators as well as the university can provide.
• Learn about available resources and discuss needs and wishes.

We have invited two experts on eco-emotions – Panu P. Pihkala (University of Helsinki) and Marlis Wullenkord (Lund University) – to share their knowledge and experiences. In addition, three Lund University units that are dealing with climate anxiety/eco-emotions in different ways will present their work, experiences, and reflections – the Student Health Centre, the Occupational Health Service, and Medvetenskapens hus.

The seminar will mix presentations with discussions and more interactive parts. Fika will be served – please register following to this event following the link below.

Audience

This seminar is intended for programme directors, course coordinators, educators (at all levels including PhD students), and study administrators at Lund University. Others are welcome to register, but priority will be given to those from Lund University with existing educational assignments. Spaces are limited. The seminar will be in English.

Registration

Registration is open until September 26 (extended!).

To register, please visit the seminar registration page - forms.office.com 

For late registration, contact Terese Thoni: terese [dot] thoni [at] cec [dot] lu [dot] se (terese[dot]thoni[at]cec[dot]lu[dot]se)

Venue

The seminar will take place at Kemicentrum, Hörsal A/Hall A (KC:A). Kemicentrum is located in the northern campus area of Lund. From Lund city centre, you can get there by foot (20-30 min walk), bus, or tram. Kemicentrum is located between the tram stations LTH and Ideontorget. There are several entrances. The closest from Lund city centre is Entrance A via Sölvegatan. Signage will be visible.

Organizers:

The seminar is organized by Lund University's Sustainability Forum in collaboration with the Division for Higher Education Development (AHU), and LTH Centre for Engineering Education (CEE).

Sustainability Forum - sustainability.lu.se

Division for Higher Education Development (AHU) - ahu.lu.se

LTH Centre for Engineering Education - lth.se