An easy-to-use field guide for teaching on climate injustice and building resilience in your students—and yourself—in an age of crisis.

As feelings of eco-grief and climate anxiety grow, educators are grappling with how to help students learn about the violent systems causing climate change while simultaneously navigating the emotions this knowledge elicits. This book provides resources for developing emotional and existential tenacity in college classrooms so that students can stay engaged.

Featuring insights from scholars, educators, activists, artists, game designers, and others who are integrating emotional wisdom into climate justice education, this user-friendly guide offers a robust menu of interdisciplinary, plug-and-play teaching strategies, lesson plans, and activities to support student transformation and build resilience. The book also includes reflections from students who have taken classes that incorporate their emotions in the curricula. Galvanizing and practical, The Existential Toolkit for Climate Justice Educators will equip both educators and their students with tools for advancing climate justice.

“The Existential Toolkit for Climate Justice Educators is an interdisciplinary amalgam of lesson plans and assignments for teaching about the climate crisis and climate change with the goal of helping students understand their emotions about the subject and to turn their emotions into positive activities.” * PRO-COMM Professional Communications Society *
". . . I suspect even the most senior, experienced educators among us—the ‘executive chefs,’ to return to the cookbook analogy Atkinson and Ray use in their introduction—will find something new or provocative for their teaching methods within the earnest reflections compiled here. Dig in." * Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment *

Jennifer Atkinson is Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Washington, Bothell, and author of Gardenland: Nature, Fantasy, and Everyday Practice.

Sarah Jaquette Ray is Professor of Environmental Studies at Cal Poly Humboldt and author of A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety: How to Keep Your Cool on a Warming Planet.