Codename Seedling: an Arts Educational Toolbox for Climate Youth Work

<p dir="ltr">How was this toolbox created?</p><p dir="ltr">This toolbox was created during the Erasmus+ project ‘Codename Seedling: An Arts Educational and Climate Justice Approach to Youth Work’. The project aimed to innovate climate youth work by learning from arts education. We explore how we can use arts to engage and work with youth on the topic of ecology and the biodiversity crisis. As part of this project, we exchange knowhow with international practitioners (working with youth in arts, education, and activism) and create local projects with youth. To develop the methods in this toolbox, we gathered practitioners from Belgium, Denmark, France, Portugal, and the United Kingdom who work at the intersection of arts, youth engagement, and non ­formal education. Together, we explored how different artistic media (such as storytelling, visual media, digital arts, and performance) could be used for working on ecological topics with youth.<br><br>On the project as a whole<br>The project started in the summer of 2024 and runs until autumn 2025. The first part focuses on the ‘practice’, including arts-based youth projects and the development of arts-based advocacy toolkits for youth practitioners based on the activities of our international community of practice. The second part focuses on ‘research’, including an impact study through an embedded reflective strategy that demonstrates the potential of the creative projects and toolkit, and ‘dissemination’ where we communicate with the wider world what we’ve been doing in this project. The project is coordinated by Vrije Universiteit Brussel (BE), in collaboration with practice partners Destelheide (BE), De Veerman (BE), Nyskaben (DK), AND Lab (PT), Villette Makerz (FR), Coney (UK), and research partner Bath Spa University (UK).</p><p dir="ltr"><br></p><p dir="ltr">Why this toolbox?<br>With the climate crisis visibly unfolding around us, educators across the world search for ways to help young people understand what’s happening and how they can respond to it. Whereas schools tend to focus on scientific literacy, research shows that teaching content remains limited in effectively engaging and activating young people. To bridge the gap between the ‘talk’ and the ‘walk’, climate education must also invest in approaches based on feeling, doing, and being, and by integrating methods from activism and youth work. As such, the call rises to develop educational strategies that can creatively and informally lead to deep engagement with young people and provides them with the ability to adapt to a changing environment.<br><br>Why this approach?<br>This toolbox recognises the ‘cultural dimension’ of climate change, e.g. people’s values and behaviour. One thing is to develop climate ‘solutions’; another is to see the importance of such solutions and implement them. The dimension of people’s beliefs and actions is said to be crucial to develop a more sustainable future for Earth. As your belief system creates your reality, it can change ́ your behaviour. To tend to the cultural dimension of climate change, this toolbox offers methods centring values of care ­ for nature (biospheric values) and for others (altruistic values) ­ as people who hold such values are more likely to engage in climate­ conscious behaviour and climate just approaches.<br>To cultivate values of care in climate learning, arts­-based approaches are particularly well­ suited as they make climate change meaningful to people through accessible storytelling, stimulate connection to climate issues, and offer a space for perspective-­taking and collective imagination. Our toolbox focuses on embodied and playful arts approaches to awaken people’s awareness, grow their sense of connection to the various species and environments they are surrounded by, and activate their capacity of worldmaking.</p><p dir="ltr"><br></p><p dir="ltr">What is in the toolbox?</p><p dir="ltr">This toolbox is made up of 8 games, 9 reflection methods, and 20 workshops. Some of them are rather short, for instance a game of 15 minutes, while others are workshops of a whole day, broken down into smaller activities.</p>