The new resource empowers storytellers to foster climate literacy with hope, humor, and age-appropriate strategies.
Contact: Jon Purves
Media Relations Director
The Aspen Institute
jon.purves@aspeninstitute.org
San Diego, CA, February 10, 2025 – At the 2025 Kidscreen Summit 2025, Planet Media, an initiative of This Is Planet Ed at the Aspen Institute, unveiled A Toolkit for Climate Storytelling. The comprehensive toolkit equips content creators with four essential climate principles and strategies to help children and families understand our changing climate, promoting climate literacy and empowering young people to advance solutions.
“Climate change is harming families across the globe, today, and children’s media provides an underutilized opportunity to help kids navigate what’s going on around them,” said Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, co-chair of the Planet Media Task Force and chief scientist for The Nature Conservancy. “This toolkit will help kids’ media engage and inspire the next generation of climate leaders.”
“Children are concerned about climate change, and many hold misconceptions about its causes, impacts, and solutions,” said Gary Knell, co-chair of the Planet Media Task Force and former CEO of National Geographic and Sesame Workshop. “Kids are looking to media for answers, and whether through YouTube, gaming, streaming, or more, media can meet kids where they are and provide scientifically-based and age-appropriate information to build understanding.”
A 2022 report from This Is Planet Ed found that while 74% of parents want to see children’s media include climate solutions, only 1.4% of 664 episodes from children’s educational and nature-themed TV series episodes reviewed contained climate change content.
To address this gap, the Planet Media Task Force, co-chaired by Hayhoe and Knell and consisting of a dozen leaders across media, education, climate, communications and more, came together to create a roadmap to support children’s media in integrating four essential climate principles across content and platforms.
The four essential climate principles, developed In partnership with Planet Media and The Nature Conservancy, encourage content creators to support children in understanding:
- Earth is our home.
- Earth is getting hotter because of us.
- Our climate is changing now and that harms us.
- But, together, we can build a brighter future.
This toolkit offers strategies, examples, and ideas to support creators in developing content grounded in these principles, and urges them to help young people understand climate change and develop agency to act. The toolkit breakdown developmentally-appropriate strategies for children 3-5, 5-8, and 9-12 based on research about how kids learn.
“Too often, people worry that teaching about climate change will overwhelm kids, but the reality is children’s lives are being disrupted by climate change today,” said Alberto M. Carvalho, Superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District and member of the Planet Media Task Force. “We have a responsibility to help children understand the world in a productive way, where they feel empowered, rather than anxious, to make a difference.”
To view the full document, visit https://www.thisisplaneted.org/resources/climate-storytelling-toolkit
About This Is Planet Ed
This Is Planet Ed is an initiative of the Aspen Institute Energy & Environment Program that intends to unlock the power of education as a force for climate action, climate solutions, and environmental justice to empower the rising generation to lead a sustainable, resilient, and equitable future. This Is Planet Ed works across Early Years, K-12, Higher Education, and Children’s Media to build our societal capacity to advance climate solutions. Visit www.thisisplaneted.org and join the conversation by following This Is Planet Ed on X (Twitter) and Instagram.
About the Aspen Institute
The Aspen Institute is a global nonprofit organization whose purpose is to ignite human potential to build understanding and create new possibilities for a better world. Founded in 1949, the Institute drives change through dialogue, leadership, and action to help solve society’s greatest challenges. It is headquartered in Washington, DC and has a campus in Aspen, Colorado, as well as an international network of partners. For more information, visit www.aspeninstitute.org.