Teachers’ union recognizes teacher group focused on climate-change issues

Manitoba’s newest professional teacher group has a mandate to share tips for managing eco anxiety and deliver solutions-based lessons on climate change.

The Environmental and Climate Action Education Network of Manitoba officially became an affiliate of the Manitoba Teachers’ Society this spring.

For its co-founders, the union’s endorsement is especially timely, as school communities make sense of recent wildfire and flooding-related disruptions — symptoms of, in teacher Suzanne Simpson’s words, “the biggest existential threat facing humanity.”

“We do a disservice to present scary facts without any hopeful action, without the opportunity for hopeful action,” said Simpson, a teacher-librarian who runs environmental clubs at two elementary schools in Winnipeg.

A trio of teachers established the group, formerly known as Educators for Climate Action, over the summer break in 2023.

Since then about 250 people have taken in its workshops on school-based reuse and repair initiatives, tallgrass prairie restoration and related topics.

In a bid to expand their reach, teacher-organizers recently applied for “special area group” status with their union. The new designation makes them eligible to access leadership training and run a full day of professional development on each of the union’s PD days.

“Our kids are experiencing climate change now. We have climate refugees in Manitoba now… and schools being community centres and teachers being community leaders, unfortunately, there is a bit of a weight that comes with that,” said Scott Durling, interim president of the network.

Durling defines environmental education as any lesson designed to make students reflect on their relationship to their habitat and neighbours — including humans, animals and other species — and Indigenous knowledge about all of it.

His backyard garden, which he planted more than a decade ago when he was a student-teacher, led him to learn more about ecological restoration and climate action.

In recent years he’s relayed those lessons to his middle-school students — often with seeds, soil and a planting plan. He’s also run workshops to give kids and colleagues tools to take care of their mental health in the face of the overwhelming reality that is climate change.

Durling recalled teachers in wildfire-affected communities sharing how terrifying and traumatizing it was for them and their students to have “go bags” at their front doors last spring and summer. Fire and smoky conditions cancelled classes and postponed school activities.

“Experiencing any of these events, whether we’re seeing them first-hand or on a screen, it changes us, and sometimes it’s important to dwell in those experiences,” he said. “But then we need to move beyond that, and part of what we know helps (is belonging to a community of like-minded people).”

Manitoba Education is in the process of developing a climate change education framework “to enhance climate literacy.”

Simpson said teachers can apply an environmental education lens to any subject, as well as extracurricular activities.

She organizes composting, runs a “bike bus” — an active transportation parade that helps students commute to and from class on wheels — and leads nature walks for students.

“Some things are showier than others, but the heart and the core of what I do is making space for students to build those positive, personal relationships with the nature around them,” she said.

Simpson noted climate action can be as simple as pausing to have a conversation with a child who screams when they see a bug and immediately attempt to stomp on it. In such a situation, she recommends pausing and talking to a child about the insect’s “gifts” — for instance, a beetle’s decomposition skills — and their shared ecosystem.

The Manitoba Teachers’ Society has 36 special area groups focused on different subject areas, from math to home economics, and specializations such as working with at-risk students.

“It’s about learning. It’s about networking. It’s about improving the way we do things,” said union president Lillian Klausen, who represents 17,000 educators in public schools across Manitoba.

She said professional development sessions are key for sharing lesson ideas, classroom-management strategies and emerging research.

Along with a new environmental education network, the union recently adopted the Red River Métis Educator Association.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca