Title: Enabling students to face the environmental crisis and climate change with resilience: inclusive environmental and sustainability education approaches and strategies for coping with eco-anxiety

Authors: Laura Sims; Rhéa Rocque; Marie-Élaine Desmarais

Addresses: Faculty of Education, Université de St. Boniface, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada ' Prairie Climate Centre, University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada ' Faculty of Education, Université de St. Boniface, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Abstract: As university educators, we should educate students to be able to address the challenges presented by the environmental crisis and climate change by being responsible eco-citizens, and creative, solution-oriented thinkers. We have a responsibility to create inclusive environmental and sustainability educational (ESE) approaches that are enabling, emotionally supportive, engaging, and praxis-oriented. Herein we describe ESE approaches that are considered beneficial and provide specific strategies to cope with eco-anxiety, to help students develop emotional resilience in the face of this crisis. We then explore aspects that are mutually complementary between inclusive ESE and the proposed coping strategies for eco-anxiety followed by a discussion on the implications for postsecondary teaching and learning.

Keywords: environmental and sustainability education; well-being; higher education; eco-anxiety; inclusive education.

DOI: 10.1504/IJHES.2020.113059

International Journal of Higher Education and Sustainability, 2020 Vol.3 No.2, pp.112 - 131

Received: 09 Jun 2020
Accepted: 20 Aug 2020
Published online: 16 Feb 2021 *

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