Nature art for eco-hope

What you'll need

• “Connect with nature” student handout, print one copy per student
• Pencil and coloring crayons or markers, per student
• Clip board or similar, one per student 

1. Start the activity by having a class discussion about climate change, climate anxiety and eco-hope and/or do the activity “How do you feel about climate change”

2. Share with students that going out into the forest and greenspace can help reduce climate anxiety and make us feel calmer. It also can be a place of discovery, inspiring us to take meaningful action and contribute to climate change solutions.

Connect with nature

3. Tell students we will go outside to capture nature by drawing a scene that we see. Share that nature is things like trees, plants, animals, clouds and rain. They are not people-made things like buildings or cars. After completing their drawings, students are invited to turn the page and follow simple prompts: close their eyes to listen, gaze at the sky, stand beneath a tree, and run on the spot. These activities can help them connect with nature more deeply and engage with the elements of their natural environment. They can record their experience on the handout. 

4. Provide each student with a copy of the “Connect with nature” student handout, a clip board or similar, pencil and coloring crayons or markers. 

5. Dress for the weather, power down the classroom and head outside to draw and experience nature.

Reflect

6. After completing their drawings and recording their answers have students come back inside and create an art gallery in the classroom to share their pictures. Invite students to add a title and (optionally) a short description to their pictures. Set up the classroom art gallery with as much detail as you prefer. Decorate the classroom, set up spotlights on their artwork, create gallery opening invitations, provide snacks and drinks, etc. 

7. Students then can do a ‘gallery walk’ ato view the other pictures while reflecting on their experience of connecting to nature, how it made them feel and considering the outside effects of light, sound and temperature. Encourage them to have discussions with other students about the art they see, or leave post-it note comments about how the art pieces made them feel as they walk around.

8. Gather everyone back together again. Ask students what it means to be comfortable in the natural environment and have them share how nature can help us be and stay comfortable. They may share that the sun provides light and can keep us warm and trees can help us stay cool in summer and shelter us from wind and rain. 

9. Discuss that inside our school and homes often electricity helps us to control our environment, so we are comfortable. In B.C. our electricity is powered by BC Hydro which is clean renewable energy. Hydroelectricity powers our lights, our appliances and devices, heats many homes and can keep us cool in summer. However, it’s important not to waste energy and we can use nature to help us reduce our electricity indoors. Have students share ways we can ‘power off’ by using nature to help us like opening blinds/curtains and turning off the lights, putting on a sweater and turning down the heat, opening blinds and curtains to let sunlight in and provide warmth in winter, but close them on hot summer days to keep the sun's heat out. 

10. There are many ways we can take action to conserve energy and hence mitigate climate change. Taking action with climate solutions that are within our control helps reduce anxiety and feelings of helplessness over climate change. Share that these were ways to conserve electricity but there are other positive changes we can all make.

Create a mind map

11. Share that as a class we will create a mind map/brain dump to capture these positive changes and take action.

12. Copy this template on to the board so all the students can see, writing “take action” in the center and using the four headings “waste, energy, water and transport”.

13. Using the “think, pair, share strategy”, (where students think on their own, share their ideas with a friend, and then share as a class) have students propagate ideas and solutions to take action on our environment and combat climate change. Write some of the ideas the class share on the mind map under the relevant category.  

14. Here are a few of our ideas: