Sustaining Mental Health

The last few weeks have honestly felt rough, with navigating classroom teaching, interviews, and just ongoing pandemic stress. But based on my conversations with other colleagues, it seems like many others are feeling this way too as we navigate our last practicum. Any astrologers out there who can tell me if mercury is on retrograde or something?

My own feelings of being tired, anxious, and just down right burnt out has prompted me to think about what this means for teaching students and sustainable education. Last week I read Mikaela's blog which brought up the idea of eco-anxiety and how we can better address it in the classroom. Her own efforts to incorporate these elements of eco-justice into her classroom made me start thinking about what I could do about this too. If I find my mental health at times struggling, students might be feeling the same way. So if I'm developing lessons where I expect to inspire students to take sustainable action, then I need to do more than just giving them information, I need to also support their well-being. This leads me to ask: is there an approach I can utilize in my Sustain Ed lessons that will help me to tie in mental health and feelings of eco-anxiety to my topic of sustainable energy?

An Outline of a Plan

Since I last wrote, there have been a few updates around delivering the lesson content Shelley and I have developed for classroom teaching. We confirmed that we will be co-teaching some of our lessons to a Grade 8 virtual class during the (original) March Break week, which is in a week! We also divided up who will be in charge of "hosting" a particular lesson, which left me in charge of our last lesson focused on carbon neutral. This lesson has three main goals:

1. Have students assess their own carbon footprint and what they can do to reduce it

2. Understand the importance of the economy going carbon neutral

3. What they can do convince industries to become carbon neutral

The first and last goal I think can tie in really well with feelings of eco-anxiety. Eco-anxiety is when there is a fear of Earth's future due to climate change. A sense of "environmental doom" is another way to think about it. In both areas, students are given opportunities to reflect on their own current actions, the actions of industries, and what they can do about it. My hope is that giving students the opportunity to think about what actions they can take to make a difference might help to navigate eco-anxiety. When it comes to the environment and climate change, it can feel like there is just too much to do and too much out of your own control to make a difference. One method I have chosen to use to help them navigate feelings of resiliency instead of feeling overwhelmed is the circle of control, influence, and concern. This method was originally developed by Stephen R. Covey in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, to help people navigate a variety of issues, such as their health, children, work, and so on. In the original development of this circle, there were only these two circles, which gave participants the chance to see where they can make changes in their own lives. Modifications have been made to this approach by adding a third circle, the circle of control, in the centre. Here's an idea of what it can look like:

I honestly do not remember where I first heard about this technique, but it came up in a google search when I was trying to find activities to help students learn about their role in sustainable actions. For my lesson, I am adapting the circle so that students can use it to understand how they can help our country and economy go carbon neutral.

In the first outer circle, the circle of concern, students will write about an issue of concern, which for this lesson, will be related to carbon emissions. In the second circle, the circle of influence, students will begin to start working towards a solution to their problem. They can identify environmental impacts they can influence, but do not have any direct control over. In this last circle, students will identify what carbon emission issues they can have direct control over. The hope with this activity is that students understand that they can make changes in their own lives and also have the ability to influence big businesses to become carbon neutral.

Mindful Actions

What I like about this activity is the way it forces students to reflect on how they can make sustainable actions feel more manageable. By having students tap into their own feelings in this manor, I believe I can help them to become more mindful of their responses to environmental challenges. In a study by Wamsler, et al. (2016), the researchers found that there is a link between individual wellbeing and climate change mitigation - mindfulness. To conduct this study, a team of 70 researchers reviewed literature from across disciplines to identify patterns and then analyze teaching and learning practices that connected sustainability and mindfulness.

One key finding was the use of "ecological mindfulness", "contemplative environmental practice" or "contemplative practice for sustainability" as an emerging trend in organizations and schools to help people become aware of their thoughts, emotions, values, and experiences that contribute to sustainable or unsustainable actions. In fact, building this connection led to the development of scientific understanding and sustainable action concerning climate change issues. When in the classroom, Wamsler, et al. (2016) found that mindful actions of establishing a classroom community and integrating activities that provoked reflection in students lead to 64% of participants agreeing that mindfulness added extra value to sustainable education.

I think that the circle of concern, influence, and control activity may compliment the research in this paper as the activity provokes reflection of personal connections to carbon emissions and come up with actions they can take to mitigate these issues. My hope is that through this activity, students will actually end up going out into the world and perform these actions they brainstormed. Especially since an activity we do shortly after this circle one is to have students draft a letter to a company they regularly purchase from to encourage them to go carbon neutral. Will students actually end up sending those letters?

I would be interested in perhaps having a post-class survey, maybe a few weeks after the lesson, to see if students actually change their behaviours (and sent that letter). Doing so would help me to understand if such an activity could help in bringing about change in students, since the paper never went into specifics about what reflective activities are most effective. If I do see a positive change, then I would be more inclined to use this activity in my own class in the future.

Learning and Improving

I am excited to how this lesson goes when I deliver it in a class in about a week. Incorporating opportunities for mindful reflection speaks back to one of my learning goals to learn how to inspire actions in my students. A key theme with this learning goal seems to be that inspiring personal connections are what can lead to changes in behaviour. This idea of mindfulness to spark sustainable action also speaks to one other element I incorporated into this lesson, a connection to nature, which I had addressed in an earlier post, to foster behaviour change and engagement in students. Since this lesson is virtual and I cannot take students outside, I settled for the next best thing - videos! Both showcase snippets of the outdoors, which I hope will get students understanding that reducing carbon emissions will help us to preserve these spaces.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Yx9unN6UFE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teZk3NLU_7M

It also makes me curious how these two dimensions of sustainable education - instilling a connection to nature and mindfulness - will play out in this lesson. My expectation is that this lesson can draw on benefits of both to provoke an emotional connection that will help students in understanding the seriousness of this climate change issue and inspire action.

Literature Reference

Wamsler, C. Brossmann, J., Hendersson, H., Kristjansdottir, R., McDonald, C., & Scarampi, P. (2018). Mindfulness in sustainability science, practice, and teaching. Sustainable Science, 13, 143-162.