Becoming a Climate Champion:
A Climate Emergency Course for Young People

INTRODUCTION

The Goal of This Course – To Help You Become a Climate Change Champion

This course introduces participants to key concepts of climate change and climate change action to help you safeguard the future by enabling you to better understand, participate, and contribute. By the end of the course, you should feel far more comfortable talking about and taking action on climate change. You will be well on your way to becoming a Climate Change Champion.

How Is the Course Laid Out?

This course has been set up as a self-directed learning experience that can be taken individually or as part of a team. You might have a facilitator, or you might be working completely independently. If the latter is the case, we suggest that you sometimes talk over your learnings and responses to learning activities with a family member or friend. If a discussion forum has been set up for the course, you can reach out to others that way.

Each module has three lessons in it. Each lesson has usually three parts to it with learning activities sprinkled throughout. You will be learning from readings, videos, practical activities, reflections, short quizzes, and optional discussions with others. Examples, scenarios and case studies come from several different countries around the world.

We picture that each lesson will take you one to three hours to complete, but of course that depends on you and your schedule (and the length of the lesson, of course). Take as much time as you need.

We have, in most cases, chosen short videos in case there are internet bandwidth or accessibility issues. (Even rural areas in highly developed countries still struggle with this problem.) If you have problems watching the videos, a short synopsis (summary) of each one is provided in an appendix to the course. Our apologies for any advertisements that pop up when you watch a video; we cannot control those. Also, you can adjust the playback speed and/or turn on subtitles/captions, which are – sometimes comically – not always reliably correct!

Our advice is that you start at the beginning and work your way through the course modules in sequence, but this is not actually necessary. Each module stands quite well on its own.

Learning Journals

Assessment and Certificate of Completion

Unless this course is one that is assigned to you or you are taking for credit, it is up to you to decide how much effort you put into the learning activities. Most of them call on your reflective abilities and critical and creative thinking skills, so are not about right-or-wrong answers. They are designed to increase your climate change knowledge, skills and confidence.

For most of you, this is a self-directed course, meaning that you decide how to proceed. If you want to find out how well you are learning the material, you will want to do the self-assessment quiz at the end of each module. 

If you are taking this course through an educational institution, ask your contact at the institution about receiving a certificate of completion. You might want to study your course notes to do well on the quizzes.

The Academic Level of This Course

We have not dumbed this course down for you. Climate change is the greatest threat that humanity has ever faced. It makes no sense to sugar-coat this frightening truth. We speak to you as adults, albeit mostly young adults, who are facing a future of climate destabilization and ecosystem breakdown. We have attempted to ensure that this course is always honest with you about the state of the climate – even though that is changing (in other words, worsening) very rapidly. The goal is to empower you to take action on climate change and perhaps even become a climate change "champion" – a leader of others and an advocate for the rest of Nature. For that, you must understand the urgency of the climate emergency.

If there is something – a term or a concept – that you do not understand, we trust that you will, as an independent learner, look it up.

By the way, educators from nine member countries of the Commonwealth of Learning were involved in developing this course (see below), so you might come across some spellings or turns of phrase that you are not used to.

How This Course Will Help You Become a Climate Change Champion

This course will not teach you absolutely everything you could learn about climate change, but it will teach you enough to understand why we all need to take action. It is filled with examples of what others are doing, tips and tricks, resources, as well as ideas and suggestions for climate action.

One thing to do is notice which module(s) and which movies and readings resonate the most for you, make your heart sing, or light your dreams and creativity on fire. That might be the place (issue, topic) where you want to start your journey as a Climate Champion.

If Module 1 – Climate Change Science resonates for you:

• You might want to become someone who helps others understand the science of climate change.

Module 2 – Impacts and Consequences of Climate Change:

• You might want to help people grasp – and adapt to – the extreme climate change events heading their way.

Module 3 – Climate Justice:

• You might want to work in a social services / helping field.

Module 4 – Climate Change Mitigation

• You might want to become a policymaker with your government, or work on mitigation projects with your hands.

Module 5 – Intersectionality

• You might want to work with vulnerable people.

Module 6 – Adaptation and Resilience

• You might want to work in emergency services.

Module 7 – Action for Climate Empowerment

• You might enjoy becoming an organizer / coordinator / facilitator extraordinaire.

The Modules

Module 1 – The Science of Climate Change
Developed by Jane Dikinya, Botswana Open University

• Lesson 1: Climate System Change
• Lesson 2: Causes and Effects of Climate Change
• Lesson 3: Climate Change: Measuring, Monitoring, and Observing Trends

Module 2 – Impacts and Consequences of Climate Change
Developed by Simon Maseko, Emlalatini Development Centre; Ntombenhle Dlamini and Bhekithemba V. Gama, Ministry of Education and Training, Eswatini

• Lesson 1: The Local, National and Global Impacts and Consequences of Climate Change
• Lesson 2: The Urgency of Climate Change
• Lesson 3: Communicating the Urgency of the Climate Emergency

Module 3 – Climate Justice
Developed by Edwig Karipi, Namibia College of Open Learning

• Lesson 1: Climate Justice Explained
• Lesson 2: The Importance of Climate Justice
• Lesson 3: Addressing Climate Injustice

Module 4 – Getting to Zero: Mitigating Climate Change to Safeguard the Future
Developed by David Mzura-Chima and Victoria Kalaya, Malawi College of Distance Education; 
Dr. Joshua Valeta, Director of Open, Distance and e-Learning, Malawi

• Lesson 1: Ways of Mitigating Climate Change
• Lesson 2: Your Carbon Footprint
• Lesson 3: Sustainable Green and Blue Jobs for You

Module 5 – Intersectionality: What Can We Learn from Others?
Developed by Professor Dr. Mahabuba Nasreen, Bangladesh Open University

• Lesson 1: What is Intersectionality?
• Lesson 2: Different Lived Experiences of Climate Change and Responses to It
• Lesson 3: What Can We Learn from Others?

Module 6 – Adaptation and Resilience
Developed by Dr. Sanghmitra Suryapani, National Institute of Open Schooling, India

• Lesson 1: What is Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience?
• Lesson 2: Climate Change Refugees and Migration / Displacement
• Lesson 3: Building Resilience Through Ecosystem Services (Nature’s Gifts)

Module 7 – Action for Climate Empowerment
Dr. Janet Subagan-Mondez, Flexible, Open and Distance Education – Department of Education, Papua New Guinea

• Lesson 1: ACE is the Base! United Nations Action for Climate Empowerment (ACE)
• Lesson 2: Becoming a Climate Change Communicator and Ambassador
• Lesson 3: You Are a Climate Champion!

One Last Thought on Resilience — Your Resilience

Although building resilience to climate change impacts will be covered generally in Module 6, let’s talk for a moment about your resilience and emotional health.

Recent research in Canada and around the world revealed that a great many young people are increasingly feeling sad or depressed, anxious, abandoned, powerless, helpless, guilty, fearful or full of dread about climate change.

— Climate Emotions and Anxiety Among Young People in Canada: A National Survey and Call to Action

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667278223000032

— Climate Anxiety in Children and Young People and Their Beliefs about Government Responses to Climate Change: A Global Survey

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(21)00278-3/

“No matter your age, if you’re tuned in, some degree of dread probably is your experience. Young people today are faced with the inevitability of planetary impacts. Our minds have to grapple with that knowledge on top of [...] the other looming unknowns (what jobs will our robot overlords permit us?), all while glued to devices generating algorithmic angst.”

— Chris Hatch

The advice, if you are feeling these things, is to just be with your feelings, to sit quietly with them, perhaps in meditation (or, better yet, take them for a walk with a friend). It is in recognizing and validating what we are feeling – and then allowing ourselves to lament what we are losing through climate crises and extreme weather – that we can get to the other side of those feelings and take action.

“Ecological anxiety is a thoroughly sane response to planetary crisis; it may also be necessary for finding a way through the climate era. In fact, one way to understand the rise in eco-distress is a measure of breakdown in our defence mechanisms. We won’t make uncomfortable changes if we’re feeling comfortable.”

— Britt Wray, PhD (https://www.brittwray.com)

“We need to engage with others in the work of transforming the world while recognizing there is no short-term fix. There may not be a ‘fix’ at all. But there is a lot we can do.”

— Chris Hatch

“I think people think of climate work in general as a depressing thing. I want people to know that I’m very happy to be a part of it, and I feel most hopeful when I’m working for climate justice. It isn’t something that has to be sad, depressing, or anxiety-inducing. I am definitely more hopeful than I was before joining [a youth environmental activist group]. Just feeling like I’m doing something definitely lessens my anxiety about the future.

— Maria, Climate Generation’s YEA! Program student

Becoming a Climate Champion is definitely an up and down journey, and tears are common amongst climate change activists. That you are doing something is enough. If everyone did a little bit, no one would feel like they have to do it all.

In closing, here is a powerful piece of wisdom:

“Don’t let your mind stick too tight on results. Let go, but don’t give up. The antidote to climate despair isn’t necessarily finding hope but generating gratitude.”

— Tibetan Buddhist teacher Mingyur Rinpoche

You can use your Learning Journal as a place to write down what you are grateful for in this beautifully diverse biosphere on this still very precious planet.

Intro (a) Learning Activity

In your Learning Journal, set two goals that you want to attain by taking this course (but do not “stick too tight on results”). Next, write two things that you feel gratitude for.

In your journey to becoming a Climate Champion, may a light wind be always at your back.

Sincerely, and with thanks to all the wonderful people listed above who made this unique course possible (including Carol Walker),

Julie, Tony and Som

• Julie Johnston, Project Coordinator (GreenHeart Education), Canada
• Tony May, Education Specialist: Open Schooling (Commonwealth of Learning), Canada
• Som Naidu, Principal Associate (Technology, Education and Design Associates), Australia