Storytelling is among the most commonly recommended tools in climate change education and among the least specified — "tell stories" is easy advice to give and hard to act on. This review gathers a decade of research on youth storytelling to establish what educators are actually doing with it, across classrooms, community programmes and land-based initiatives. Its contribution is practical: it separates out the different jobs storytelling can do, and is clear that none of them happen on their own.
Storytelling has become a common approach in climate change education, but the research on it is scattered across environmental education, science communication, media studies and youth climate justice scholarship. The authors argue this fragmentation makes it difficult for educators to see how narrative practices actually function across settings. They therefore conducted a systematic review (a structured, documented search and synthesis of existing studies) to map how storytelling is designed, supported and mediated by digital tools.
The team searched Academic Search Complete, Web of Science Core Collection and Scopus, supplemented by the first 90 Google Scholar results, limiting the search to peer-reviewed journal articles written in English and published between January 2014 and December 2024. Of 326 initial records, 30 studies were retained after screening and full-text review. Analysis combined pre-set coding categories with themes that emerged from the data; both authors reviewed all coding decisions and resolved disagreements through discussion. The 30 studies spanned six continents, with the largest group in the United States (8 of 30) and the United Kingdom (4 of 30). Participants ranged from elementary-age children to university students, teachers and community members. Seven studies involved fewer than 20 participants, nine involved 20–100, and four involved more than 100 — one digital storytelling competition reached over 41,000 students and teachers across 18 countries.
The study identified several patterns:
1. Settings vary widely. Nine studies were situated wholly or partly in formal education (four in secondary classrooms, four in universities), sixteen in informal settings such as children's theatre, after-school clubs and summer programmes, and one across school and neighbourhood.
2. Stories serve four purposes. The authors found storytelling was used to translate complex climate science into meaningful terms; to explore eco-emotions (feelings such as climate-related anxiety, grief and hope) and environmental identity; to transmit Indigenous and cultural knowledge; and to imagine alternative futures.
3. Scaffolding is essential. Scaffolding (structured support that helps learners do something they could not yet manage alone) took the form of narrative prompts such as "letters from the future," direct instruction in filmmaking, participatory video-making, and structured frameworks. The authors report that storytelling requires deliberate planning rather than spontaneous creativity.
4. Educator preparation matters. In one study, facilitator training in narrative design, digital media and ethical facilitation enabled layered student support and was associated with a shift in participants' outlook from predominantly negative to one including acceptance, curiosity and hope.
5. Community and Indigenous practices scaffold differently. The authors state that 23 studies engaged Indigenous communities or knowledge systems, where support came through elders' guidance, oral traditions and cultural protocols rather than worksheets or digital tools.
6. Digital tools are common but uneven. Eighteen of 30 studies used digital approaches, spanning youth as producers and as interpreters of others' stories. The authors caution that unequal access to devices, software and connectivity means digital storytelling can reproduce existing inequities if not designed intentionally.
Generalisability is limited. The review covered only English-language, peer-reviewed journal articles, so the authors acknowledge it likely underrepresents the Global South and non-Western knowledge systems. Most interventions were short-term, and none tracked how stories travelled beyond the programme.
For practice, the authors suggest embedding storytelling into existing units rather than adding new ones, using low-tech or multimodal formats, drawing on community relationships already in place, and positioning young people as co-researchers who identify local climate issues and share narratives with families and decision-makers. They also argue for assessment that recognises portfolios, exhibitions and community presentations, and for explicit agreements about who owns young people's stories and controls their circulation.
The Bottom Line
This qualitative systematic review synthesised 30 peer-reviewed studies of youth storytelling in climate change education published between 2014 and 2024, identified through three academic databases plus a targeted Google Scholar search. The studies spanned six continents, with most conducted in the United States and the United Kingdom, and covered formal classrooms, informal and community programmes, and land-based initiatives. The authors found that storytelling served four broad purposes: making climate science meaningful, helping young people process eco-emotions, sustaining Indigenous and cultural knowledge, and supporting futures thinking. Eighteen of the 30 studies used digital tools. The review indicates that storytelling needs deliberate scaffolding — narrative prompts, facilitator training, community partnerships or cultural protocols — rather than spontaneous creativity. For practitioners, the authors suggest storytelling can be built incrementally into existing units, and that attention to who owns and circulates young people's stories matters as much as the technology.