School-based Intervention to Address Climate Change Emotions

I Want to Talk About Climate Change, But I Wish I Didn't Have to… A Descriptive Qualitative Study of an Intervention Combining Creative Arts and Philosophical Inquiry to Help Elementary School Students Cope With Climate Change Emotions

The goal of this study was to qualitatively document the social validity of an intervention combining creative arts and philosophy inquiry and to examine its acceptability, the perceived goals, and perceived benefits for children's mental health and ability to cope with climate change from the perspective of one elemetary-school class students and their teacher.

The guiding research question was: How do children and their teacher perceive the acceptability, the goals and the benefits of the intervention? The participants were asked to participate in a seven-week creative arts and philosophical inquiry intervention. Once a week, a research assistant led a workshop using creative arts and group philosophical inquiry to discuss the topic of climate change and the emotions that can arise. Students participated in a brief individual interview after the intervention. The teacher also participated in an individual online interview.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Eco-anxiety
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: Making room for climate emotions in the classroom

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 15
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Canada
  • Quebec
    • Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada, J1M 1Z7
      • Bishop's University

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Child; Adult; Older Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Elementary school students between the ages of 8 and 12 years old who's teacher accepted to participate in the study
• Elementary school teacher

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Prevention
• Allocation: N/A
• Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

1

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm

Intervention / Treatment

Other: Creative arts an philosophy inquiry intervention; Participation in a seven-week school-based creative arts and philosophy inquiry intervention to talk about climate change emotions

Other: Making room for climate emotions in the classroom; The "Making room for climate emotions in the classroom" program is designed to address emotions as students learn (formally or informally) about climate change. Each session features a drawing, photography, Lego sculpture, rock painting or collage/drawing workshop to address themes, explore emotions/feelings/experiences and initiate discussions on topics related to climate change.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Social validity of the intervention	The social validity comprises of the perceived acceptability, goals and benefits of the intervention from participants' perspectives. It was measured using semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions to allow children and teachers to freely describe in detail their experience of the intervention. The interview guide was developed by the research team and piloted in previous research project to ensure that children understood the questions and that it allowed both positive and negative elements related to the intervention to emerge.	Immediately after the end of the intervention (at week 7)

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Université du Québec a Montréal
• Collaborators: Bishop's University

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): October 1, 2023
• Primary Completion (Actual): January 19, 2024
• Study Completion (Actual): January 19, 2024

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: January 7, 2025
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: January 13, 2025
• First Posted (Actual): January 17, 2025

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): August 5, 2025
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: July 30, 2025
• Last Verified: January 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: School-based intervention; Eco-anxiety in children; Creative arts intervention; Philosophical inquiry intervention
• Other Study ID Numbers: 767-2023-1376-1

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO
• IPD Plan Description: The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available due to the nature of qualitative data that might contain identifying information through the interview (e.g., speech slurs) but are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. The manuscript contains excerpts of the verbatim content that support each of the themes presented. Full data are not made available to ensure the confidentiality of the participants.

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No
• product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.: No