Abstract:

Over the past five years I have observed college undergraduates students become increasingly anxious and stressed, where these stressors include the isolating effects of social media, the COVID 19 pandemic, and the state of the world more generally, where for example, nuclear war is a very real threat to life on a planet already experiencing mass extinction. As a teacher educator and professor of environmental studies I have a desire and an obligation to teach students about the realities of the climate and other crises, while also encouraging them, rather than discouraging them; I do not want to add to their already over anxious lives, where doing so only results in paralyzing effects for students. My goal is to empower students to feel they have agency and to be optimistic about the future, while studying the ways in which the Earth’s ecosystems can and might be regenerated and how they as students and global citizens might contribute more generally to building a better world. Additionally, my students are required to fulfill an Engaged Learning requirement and to reflect deeply and write extensively on this experience. I have curated a set of readings, films and assignments that inform students, while allowing them to find beauty in the natural world, in one another and community, and in the hope with action that is the antidote to doomsday thinking. Students know that the problems are massive and real; they learn that solutions are as well. In this paper I share what I have learned through studying my own teaching practice about transforming students’ existential dread and anxiety through engagement, regeneration, renewal, and art.

Keywords:

Eco-anxiety, biophilic consciousness, regeneration, engagement, nature-based art.