Eco-stress (or eco-anxiety as it's often termed) is real and it’s playing out in classrooms right across the country, yet many teachers feel they don’t have the confidence they need to tackle the important – and at times polarising – topic with their students.

Back in February, EducationHQ profiled an innovative new educational social media series, called Stay Tuned to Our Planet (STTOP), produced with the aim of teaching Generation Z how to positively impact climate change and reduce their eco-anxiety.

The award-winning series has been a huge success, and even better, it has now been adapted into a free education program with more than 64 interactive lessons and activities.

With research telling us that 1 in 3 young Australians have reported that feelings about climate change had a negative impact on their daily functioning, and almost 50 per cent reporting feeling anxious on a weekly basis, the program offers a timely and highly approachable way in to this difficult subject area.

Launched on World Environment Day (June 5), the new Australian curriculum-mapped education program is a blend of entertainment and education that’s mapped to ACARA and aligned to the sustainability cross curriculum priority for Years 5-6 and 7-9, for Sciences and Humanities.

Critically, to give teachers the confidence to support students exhibiting climate stress, STOPP has partnered with Orygen Institute, Psychology for a Safe Climate and drawn on the expertise and knowledge of youth mental health foundation headspace to produce a handy Teacher Support Resource.

This guide is intended to help teachers support students dealing with difficult climate-related emotions and distress, but also to help their own eco-anxiety.

Simon Dodd is National Clinical Advisor at headspace, and with his organisation now listing climate among teens’ top five concerns, he says he and his team were very happy to be involved.

“STTOP first approached us last year to assist them and review their content for safety, in terms of the use of it for young people, particularly where there was a potential impact on mental health,” Dodd tells EducationHQ.

“It’s not designed as a trauma tool, it’s designed to give people the power and some agency, and I think in that way it is not alarmist, it’s not catastrophic, it is realistic,” headspace National Clinical Advisor Simon Dodd says about STTOP's free education program.

“Eco-anxiety is a major concern for young people and in our surveys it regularly comes up as very significant ... so it’s appropriate that we be interested in the development of a resource like this and in seeing it very early on so that we could ensure it was safe and appropriate and of high value. And it’s all of those things.”

Dodd, a clinician who’s involved in providing advice and expert input into resource, policy and activity development, says he and his team were impressed by STTOP’s experienced producers.

“They’ve done some very strong work with some very, very sensitive subjects,” he says.

“And they’ve done that in a sophisticated way and have been very mindful of the impact on the people seeing the materials and their mental health.

 “We were pretty confident and that confidence was well founded. When we’ve offered feedback, they’ve taken that on board immediately.”

When STTOP asked headspace to also assist with developing the teacher resource, it was really to assess the content and themes, and particularly the context.

Importantly, Dodd says, educators aren’t immune to eco-anxiety and the teacher guide acknowledges and talks about this.

“A lot of educators are not that much older than the students they’re working with. This (eco-anxiety) is not a new thing, this is something that’s been around for 10, 15, 20 years.”

In the past, teachers’ frustration, or a sense of helplessness, has meant they might avoid the topic altogether, and so it is hoped the Teacher Support Resource will be of assistance.

“If it’s a topic you find difficult to talk about, this is a tool that gives people an ability to talk about it in a helpful way, and that’s a useful thing for teachers as well as for students, of course,” Dodd says.

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New research out of Columbia University in the US released last month reveals that teachers need support now more than ever when it comes to teaching climate change education amid escalating challenges.

A new Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) research report, titled Climate Change Anxiety in Pre-Adolescent Children: A Neuroscientific and Psychological Perspective, also suggests not only an alarming rise in climate anxiety among pre-adolescent children in Australia, but also what researcher Clare Rowe calls “alarmist environmental messaging” that’s being spread in schools “causing an epidemic of climate anxiety that is creating a generation of psychologically paralysed young Australians”.

“The emotional toll on children is being amplified by the tone and content of educational materials that catastrophises environmental issues and asserts that young children have no future,” the educational psychologist and Adjunct Fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs suggests.

The report outlines that climate change education, as currently delivered in the National Curriculum, is “developmentally inappropriate and that it is the responsibility of educators to deliver balanced, age-appropriate information that empowers rather than frightens young Australians”.

This is precisely what the STTOP free education program does.

Talking about any difficult subject without some ability to contribute positively to an outcome is always problematic, Dodd suggests.

“It’s not ecology issues, it’s any issue. So they’re common themes. If you talk about terrible things without actually putting the scaffold around to listen and to talk about it, but also to do something about it, then that is problematic.

“The second thing is that if you look at how to help people who are impacted by information, I don’t want to use the word trauma lightly, but in an environment where there’s high levels of distress, then you need to make them safe, you need to reduce the inflammatory nature of what’s been talked about.

“You need to give them some power and agency over their own lives, a sense of hope.”

Beau Miles and Sophia Skarparis, pictured above, deliver simple and practical tips for teens as part of fast-paced lessons, classroom activities and at home challenges. 

Dodd explains that this applies not just with climate anxiety, but with any trauma environment. 

“I think STTOP does many of these things through its action. It’s not designed as a trauma tool, it’s designed to give people the power and some agency, and I think in that way it is not alarmist, it’s not catastrophic, it is realistic.”

The program was piloted at schools across NSW and WA earlier this year, and a survey of 100 students found that since doing STTOP 85.5 per cent said they have more ideas about how to help prevent climate change and 64 per cent said their knowledge of climate change has increased.

“Providing resources and support around eco-anxiety, as well as giving people an ability to do meaningful action locally, is really one of the keys to reduce the impact of these concerns on people’s day to day living,” Dodd says.

“So it’s empowerment, we’re trying to give people a sense of power over their own lives – and the best way to do that is to give them things that align with their values that actually they can do something about. And that’s what the STTOP program does in spades.”

STTOP’​s suite of free resources are now available here.