College students get emotional about climate change. Some are finding help in class

More than 50% of youth in the United States are very or extremely worried about climate change, according to a recent survey in the scientific journal The Lancet.

The researchers, who surveyed over 15,000 people aged 16–25, also found that more than one in three young people said their feelings about climate change negatively affect their daily lives.

The study adds to a growing area of research that finds that climate change, which is brought on primarily by the burning of fossil fuels, is making young people distressed. Yet experts say there are proven ways to help young people cope with those feelings — and college classrooms could play a key role.

“When any of us talk about climate with students, we can’t just talk about what’s happening in the atmosphere and oceans,” says Jennifer Atkinson, a professor at the University of Washington. “We have to acknowledge and make space for them to talk openly about what’s happening in their own lives and be sensitive and compassionate about that.”

Atkinson studies the emotional and psychological toll of climate change. She also teaches a class on climate grief and eco-anxiety, during which students examine the feelings they have around climate change with their peers. The first time the class was offered in 2017, registration filled overnight, Atkinson says.

While teaching, Atkinson says she keeps in mind that many of her students have lived through floods or escaped wildfires — disasters that have increased in intensity as the world warms — before they even start college, yet often have had few places to find support. In the classroom, students come together, frequently finding solace and understanding in one another, she says.

“Students repeatedly say that the most helpful aspect isn’t anything they hear me say,” says Atkinson. “But rather the experience of being in the room with other people who are experiencing similar feelings and realizing that their emotions are normal and really widespread.”

Making climate change personal in class

Atkinson is one of several professors around the country who has opted to put emotions and solutions at the center of her climate teaching to help students learn how to address their worries about human-driven climate change.

At Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, Michael Hoffmann, who directed the Cornell Institute for Climate Change Solutions and held other university leadership positions before becoming a professor emeritus, introduced a class on food and climate change last year. The point of focusing on food, Hoffmann says, is to teach students how to connect with climate change through their personal experiences.

“When you tell the climate change story, it has to be relevant to people,” says Hoffmann. “I’d argue there isn’t much more anything more relevant than food.”

In 2021, Hoffman co-wrote a book on how climate change could impact beloved foods like coffee, chocolate, and olive oil. He started the class in 2023 after students told him they were feeling dread about what climate change could mean for their futures.

Part of the goal, Hoffmann says, is to provide students with clear steps they can take to address climate change. Evidence suggests that approach could counteract students’ anxieties.

Since 2022, researchers at the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication have published a biannual report on climate change’s influence on the American mind. In the most recent report, released in July, they found most people are able to cope with the stress of climate change. However, about one in 10 say they feel anxious or on edge about global warming several days per week.

Bringing students together to connect about climate change and learn about solutions could help curb that toll, according to lead researcher and program director Anthony Leiserowitz.

“The best antidote to anxiety is action,” says Leiserowitz. “Especially, I would make a plug for action with other people.”

Facing the problem

Students, too, welcome more creative and emotionally-minded climate classes. Three-quarters of those who responded to the recent Lancet survey endorsed climate education and opportunities for discussion and support in academic settings.

At Cornell University, dozens of students have taken Hoffmann’s class. They learn about the global risks to food brought on by warming temperatures and how personal food decisions can play a role in contributing to planet-warming pollution.

Freshman Andrea Kim, who enrolled in the class this semester, welcomes those lessons. For a recent class, students met in a campus dining hall to make their dinner selections. Then they headed to the seminar room next door, where they partnered up to tell each other how the foods on their plate would be impacted by climate change.

After inspecting a classmate’s dinner, Kim explained that the rice, fish, and salad the student had chosen would all be threatened as global temperatures rose. It’s the kind of assignment, she says, that has helped her better understand the dangers of climate change and steps she can take.

“I think it’s good that we’re not just, like, pushing away the problem,” says Kim. “Because it’s still going to be there, whether or not we address it.”

Kim says she sometimes feels stressed about climate change, especially while scrolling through the news on her phone. But she and several other students say the class has helped them navigate those feelings.

Jada Ebron, a senior at Cornell, says she began the class feeling like there wasn’t much she could do about climate change. She says she was frustrated that large companies and governments continue to pollute and that people who are low-income and non-white suffer more as a result.

The class doesn’t shy away from those truths, says Hoffmann. But it aims to show students that their actions aren’t futile either.

To Ebron, that framing resonates.

“It forces you to challenge your beliefs and your ideas about climate change,” says Ebron, who spent part of the summer before her senior year researching how climate change impacts communities of color. “There is something that you can do about it, whether it’s as small as educating yourself or as big as participating in social justice movements.”