Research into communities’ strengths for responding to natural hazards has spun off into two highly successful websites aimed to empower young people and teachers to respond to climate change and natural hazards.
A University of Melbourne project used insights provided by the Natural Hazards Research Australia-funded Recovery Capitals project and worked with young people to adapt them for schools.
The resulting Your Climate Superpowers website walks young people through a quiz to identify their seven unique ‘climate superpowers’ - social, human, cultural, political, financial, built and natural – and then explore ‘secret missions’ they can do to learn about climate change, take action and look after themselves.
The researchers have recently received funding from the Teachers Health Foundation to develop the research into teaching activities that are aligned with the curriculum as well as resources to support teacher wellbeing.
Researcher Dr Katitza Marinkovic Chavez said climate change and the threat of natural hazards are causing a high degree of anxiety in some young people that impacts their everyday lives.
“But these problems also wake up in a lot of young people a very strong motivation to take action, to connect with others and use their creativity to deal with them,” she said.
“We have spoken to many young people who respond through active hope; there are some really impressive stories.
“Our idea was to take a strengths-based approach and let children and young people understand they have climate superpowers – to understand their skills, knowledge, values and what they are already doing.”
Your Climate Superpowers was born when Dr Chavez teamed up with another early-career researcher, Phoebe Quinn, who had been the Project Manager for the Recovery Capitals project working with lead researcher Professor Lisa Gibbs.
They believed the capitals identified by the project – the unique community strengths that determine their ability to recover from natural hazards – could be applied to children. But there was little research into what resources young people wanted to address eco-anxiety and climate distress.
With seed funding from the Melbourne Climate Futures initiative, and now with support from Climate CATCH Lab, they ran a series of workshops with 31 young people aged 12 to 25 in Victoria. The young co-designers shared stories and insights about the strengths that young people have and made suggestions around actions they can do in their own lives and how they can take care of themselves.
The researchers worked with artist Thu Huong Nguyen to create visual interpretations of the ideas from the workshops, which have been translated into a highly appealing website.
Since it was piloted in 2022, the website has been used over 18,000 times by 11,000 people and has been disseminated through Sustainability Victoria, Museums Victoria, CERES, Zoos Vic, the NSW Teachers Federation, and different schools in Victoria.
Though Your Climate Superpowers has not yet been launched nationally, Prof Gibbs said she has met end-users throughout Australia who are now using the website in their school education programs.
“Everyone has responded really well to Your Climate Superpowers. It’s just really contagious,” Prof Gibbs said.