The Climate Connection series overview
The Climate Connection is a ten-part podcast series from the British Council which explores the relationship between the climate crisis and language education.
Across the ten episodes, we’ll hear from a wide range of leading practitioners working in the sector – teachers, trainers, researchers, publishers and authors. We’ll travel from Colombia to China, Moldova to Mali, and Palestine to Poland in our quest to share what’s happening at the cutting edge of climate action in language education.
In partnership with the Oxford English Dictionary, we’ll also learn more about the origins of climate-related language, in both English and other languages.
Episode 8: Present tense
Anxiety about the climate is a serious and growing problem, in particular amongst young people. In Episode 8, Caroline Hickman from the Climate Psychology Alliance explores this phenomenon. She discusses how eco anxiety emerges, how it can affect learning, how it can be managed, and how language can act as a ‘safe space’ where these anxieties can be addressed. In From the Field, we hear from Malaika, an incredible school in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is doing all it can to be self-sufficient and to embed climate responsibility in everything that it does, and how this can create resilience. The Green Glossary, meanwhile, focuses on the etymology of ‘fossil fuel’, and considers the process of ‘register shift’, that is, how the meaning of words can change over time.
Show notes
Each episode contains downloadable show notes. These include the following:
- Information about the interviewees and the 'From the field' section of the podcast,
- The 'Green glossary', kindly provided by Oxford University Press, with links to definitions of key vocabulary in the Oxford English Dictionary
- Ideas for how you could use the podcast in your teaching
- Bonus material
How to listen or subscribe to the podcast
You can listen and subscribe to the podcast in the following ways:
- Download the episode below
- Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts - just search for 'The Climate Connection' and subscribe, or paste the RSS feed URL below in to your podcast platform: https://feeds.captivate.fm/the-climate-connection/
- Listen on Apple Podcasts
- Listen on Google Podcasts
- Listen on Spotify
This episode is produced for the British Council by Chris Sowton and Kris Dyer