From remembering to futuring: preparing children for Anthropocene

Abstract

Future generations are at risk from the effects of climate change. We have created these dangers, but our children must live with them. Mankind’s impact on the Earth’s systems, from atmospheric to oceanic, has become so extreme that they have led to a dystopian image of the future, called “the Anthropocene age,” and there are solid reasons for this image. But can we prepare children for adaptation or change only by presenting pessimistic images to them? In order to answer this question, we have examined how children tend to act to mitigate climate change, even leading social movements in order to achieve sustainable development goals. In this article, we examine children’s images of the future of the Anthropocene climate. We extracted these images from 198 students (aged 9–13) from different schools in the city of Isfahan, using the write, draw, show, and tell method. The two main themes of children’s images of the future were environmental utopian and dystopian images. The dystopian images came from children who were inactive and who did not accept any responsibility, but many of those who considered themselves to be influential in changing the future of the environment presented positive and optimistic images of the future. The research emphasizes the fact that merely understanding images of the future is not enough and that any positive change in the long-term future can be achieved only through the participation of new generations.