This article explores innovative ways to teach about climate change by highlighting an Indigenous Summer Encounter program for forty Latinx and Indigenous children aged 4-14 in Central Texas. The program, led by Coahuiltecan elders, engaged the children in creative activities like art, poetry, dance, song and theater to learn about Indigenous relationships with the land and water. The researchers participated in the summer program, capturing data through film and photography, which they drew from to co-theorise alongside the elders leading the program.
The authors argue that current climate change education often ignores or marginalizes Indigenous peoples and their deep knowledge about living in harmony with the environment. In contrast, the Summer Encounter placed Indigenous ways of knowing at the center. For example, the children learned and performed a Coahuiltecan creation story about the emergence of the people from the sacred springs. Through their movements and singing accompanied by rattles and other instruments, the children mapped out the interconnected relationships between humans, animals, water, and sky.
The article suggests that this kind of embodied, creative learning can be a powerful form of climate change education. It allows children to develop a sense of kinship and responsibility towards the natural world. Importantly, it challenges the idea that only Western science has the answers to climate change. Instead, it values and uplifts Indigenous knowledge as essential for finding more sustainable ways to live on the planet.
The authors describe the children's activities as a form of "choreographic fugitivity" —- using movement and sound to escape the usual boundaries of climate change education. For instance, when the children sang to the sacred springs, the authors noted that their voices and instruments created a changing rhythm with each repetition, bringing them into spiritual connection with the water. These practices point to different ways of relating to nature beyond the extractive, human-centered approach of settler colonialism.
Throughout the paper, the authors emphasize the importance of anticolonial approaches to climate change education that disrupt the ongoing erasure of Indigenous peoples and their rights to land. They argue that Indigenous futurity — the envisioning of Indigenous thriving in the present and future despite colonial violence —- should be at the heart of learning about climate change. The Summer Encounter provides one model for how this can happen, through creative practices that activate memory, relationality, and more livable futures.
Ultimately, the article invites educators to expand their understanding of what counts as climate change education, and to value creative, embodied, and Indigenous-led approaches. It argues that this kind of teaching and learning is necessary for nurturing the next generation to address the climate crisis in more holistic and ethical ways.
The Bottom Line
This article examines an Indigenous Summer Encounter program in Central Texas as an innovative approach to climate change education. The program, led by Coahuiltecan elders, engaged Latinx and Indigenous children in creative activities to learn about Indigenous relationships with the environment. The authors argue that this approach, which centers Indigenous knowledge and uses embodied, creative learning methods, offers a powerful alternative to conventional climate change education. By incorporating practices like performing creation stories and singing to sacred springs, the program fostered a sense of kinship with nature and challenged Western-centric views on addressing climate change. The researchers propose that such anticolonial, Indigenous-led approaches are essential for developing more holistic and ethical responses to the climate crisis.