› Share one’ s own emotions, and help children label their emotions. Educators can help children to understand their own and others’ feelings. Andree’ s students often shared not only their own emotions and perspectives but also those of extended family members and even pets. Educators can explain and model that it is okay to feel sad about a past event.
› Help children make connections to the literature and each other. Emphasize these connections to nurture empathy. For example, Andree pointed out to children that the otter left his home, just like some of them had done. This helps children connect with their peers about similar lived experiences.
› Use children’ s preferred art mediums. Encourage children to use the drawing medium of their choice. Andree provided children with pencils, colored pencils, and markers to choose from.
› Emphasize the importance of their artwork. Children can revisit their work in multiple sittings and refine it as much as they deem necessary. Children’ s representations demonstrate their reflections of their locale, which is foundational in nurturing a caring attitude toward the environment and nature. Notably, some of Andree’ s students drew general pictures of their environment, including rainbows and pleasant landscapes or their families, which also help adults to better understand children’ s knowledge about living in their environment.
› Consider positive responses that instill hope. When children recall their experiences with climate change, it can evoke negative emotions. Teachers can support children by translating their worry into action to resolve feelings of helplessness. Although a small action like picking up trash or helping a neighbor has little impact on extreme weather events, it can empower children to positively influence their communities.
Andree built on the knowledge, emotions, and experiences children shared by providing the space and opportunity for open discussion. She discussed climate-related concepts including salination of the river water when connecting to the picture book and hurricanes that children had experienced. To help children connect with the story, she adjusted terminology, such as substituting crawdad for crayfish.
As children learn more about the weather events and environment in which they live, they begin to formulate ideas about what they can do for their family, friends, and community to adapt to the situation.
Conclusion
Early childhood programs and schools support children and families through events and experiences in their everyday lives and communities, including extreme weather events and other impacts of climate change. Literacy and art can be joined to teach young children about their changing world and acknowledge and validate their lived experiences. Teachers can use the in, about, and for concepts for planning and implementing integrated and meaningful content and strategies, including the following:
› Help children articulate their feelings about climate change and related hazards; attend to the emotions they express without supplying emotions. In our experience, young children have a variety of emotions— some unexpected, such as excitement or relief( Tran et al. 2025). Sentence stems to supply might include“ My drawing shows how I felt when,”“ I chose these colors to show how I feel about,” or“ When I used these materials, I felt.”
› Cultivate hope by showing children solutions happening in the community( Miller et al. 2022). In our work, we highlighted local efforts that improved the world, such as describing community helpers providing resources and supplies to residents.
› Provide multiple ways to support young children’ s emotional expression( Ojala 2023). In Andree’ s class, children expressed their emotions through drawing, discussing the picture book, and verbally sharing their own experiences.
› Recognize that children notice adults’ fears and the events around them; they may need ways to express anger, uncertainty, or fears( Ojala 2023). In our study, some children drew anxious pictures through which they could then explain their feelings.
› Focus on small, achievable, positive outcomes to help young children feel powerful. In our study, we did so by allowing children to determine the ending of the otter story( Miller et al. 2025). This will emphasize hope and action.
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