- February 25, 2025
A new toolkit for Climate Change Education! A key output from SOLSTICE project CCC-CATAPULT
A new toolkit for climate change education has been developed by the SOLSTICE project, CCC-CATAPULT: Challenging the Climate Crisis: Children’s Agency to Tackle Policy Underpinned by Learning for Transformation.
Research-informed learning resources are increasingly recognised as essential to help bridge the Value-Action Gap among young people in relation to the climate crisis. This is the gap between pro-environmental values and engagement in individual and collective actions (Portus et al., 2024a). Such resources are essential for those involved in supporting young people’s engagement and for young people themselves.
The CCC-CATAPULT project (ccc-catapult.org) has used a co-created methodology to critically examine educational, worldview and cultural influences on young people’s climate and environment-focused learning (Portus et al., 2024b). Young people’s experiences of learning, as well as their thoughts about their own agency, have informed this multi-method research project (Reilly et al., 2024). We have used this evidence to reflect on how we might co-work with young people – in policy, practice and research – to bridge the Value-Action Gap. This work aims to determine what effective youth-centred Climate Change Education could look like.
As one of CCC-CATAPULT’s key outputs, the research team has developed eight sets of research-informed resources as a toolkit for teachers and other facilitators of young people’s learning, teacher educators, policy makers and researchers, as well as young people themselves and their peers. The eight resources in the tool kit are summarised in the infographic below. Each set of resources can be used flexibly by different stakeholders, being relevant for whoever finds them of relevance. Most resources have been evaluated by young people and/or facilitators of young people’s learning.
The eight learning tools introduce the idea of the ‘Value-Action gap’ and share our learning from adapting and using the different research methods co-productively with young people. The research-informed tools also include a guide for designing and running climate cafes in community settings with young people, promote intergenerational and peer dialogue with young people in educational and policy settings. A summary description of eight tools is provided in the table below. The CCC-CATAPULT website also provides Italian and Finnish translations for Tools 2, 4, 5, 7 and 8. All the tools are freely accessible to download and can be used digitally or in paper formats.
| Number | Name | Description |
| 1 | Exploring the Value-Action gap in Climate Education | The Value-Action Gap, a term used to describe the mismatch between people’s pro-environmental behaviours and their actions or behaviours, is a core area for exploration in the CCC-CATAPULT project. This set of slides can be used to introduce you and audiences such as teachers, young people, policy makers and researchers to the Value-Action Gap concept. |
| 2 | Delivering co-production with young people | A central ethos to the CCC-CATAPULT project was to work co-productively with young people in the delivery of the research. This tool presents new principles for working on research projects in collaboration with young people. It also shares the research teams’ reflections, as well as activities that research teams can use in planning effective co-production with young people. |
| 3 | Methods for running a youth climate café | The research team in the CCC-CATAPULT project worked with a group of young people as co-researchers to deliver a youth-focused Climate Café in Bristol, aimed at widening participation and engagement. This guide was co-produced with some of the group’s members as well as UWE student interns after their experience. The guide can be used and adapted by others to design inclusive and youth-focused Climate Cafés. |
| 4 | Facilitating Conversations about climate crisis | The CCC-CATAPULT project identified the need to make spaces for, and provide ways to support, dialogue between young people and older generations about climate crisis. The conversation cards are designed to support educators through providing a structure to facilitate discussion and activities. |
| 5 | Storytelling processes: narrative, deep mapping methods | Storytelling is a traditional form of communication and offers a more indirect way of exploring young people’s values and agency. In the CCC-CATAPULT project, it was the third stage in the data collection with young people. This set of resources shares both the storytelling process that was developed and some drawings and quotes from young people’s stories in CCC-CATAPULT’s research. The aim of the tool is to encourage others to use the methods and/or discuss themes that emerged in young people’s creative visioning of future positive places for learning within the climate crisis. |
| 6 | Running focus groups with young people | Focus groups with young people were the second stage of data collection in the CCC-CATAPULT project, after a larger-scale survey. This guide is written for those who want to set up focus group discussions as part of a methodology in researching with young people to discuss the climate crisis. |
| 7 | Including youth in climate policy making | A key element of the CCC-CATAPULT project was the engagement of policymakers concerned with young people’s learning in the climate crisis. This involved young people and researchers working with policymakers at regional and national levels. This resource shares ways of including young people in policy making and valuing in their contributions. |
| 8 | Teaching with worldviews/values | The CCC-CATAPULT project found that developing young people’s values and worldviews is an important part of climate change education, alongside teaching of knowledge and skills. This set of resources supports educators to consider values and worldviews in their approaches to climate change education for young people. The material can be used in teacher education. |
The tool kit is available to access for free at https://ccc-catapult.org/project-resources/project-toolkit/. The research team very much welcomes assistance in sharing these resources and any feedback on their use.
Further information on the toolkit can be obtained by emailing the research leads for the four case-study city regions.
- Lindsey McEwen (lindsey.mcewen@uwe.ac.uk)
- Frances Fahy (frances.fahy@universityofgalway.ie)
- Ilaria Gnecco (ilaria.gnecco@unige.it)
- Inkeri Rissanen (inkeri.rissanen@tuni.fi)
Further information about other resources developed through the CCC-CATAPULT project can be found on the project website.
References
Portus, R., Aarnio-Linnanvuori, E., Dillon, B., Fahy, F., Gopinath, D., Mansikka-Aho, A., Williams, S., Reilly, K. and McEwen, L. (2024a) Exploring environmental value action gap and education research: a semi-systematic literature review. Environmental Education Research, 30(6), 833–863. DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2024.2314060
Portus, R., Williams, S.-J., Mansikka-aho, A., Reilly, K., Aarnio-Linnanvuori, E., De Vito, L., Dillon, B., Fahy, F., Gnecco, I., Sposito, S., Palla, A., and McEwen, L. (2024b). Reflections on co-productive research in a youth-focused climate education project. Geographical Research, 63(1), 118–133. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-5871.12642
Reilly, K., Dillon, B., Fahy, F., Phelan, D., Aarnio-Linnanvuori, E., De Vito, L., Gnecco, I., Gopinath, D., Holmes, A., Laggan, S., Mansikka-aho, A., Palla, A., Portus, R., Rissanen, I., Sposito, S., Williams, S.-J., and McEwen, L. (2024). Learning from young people’s experiences of climate change education. Geography, 109(1), 44-48. https://doi.org/10.1080/00167487.2024.2297616
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