Fostering Climate Resilience Through Education and Arts (2025-2026)
As climate hazards increase in frequency and intensity, building resilience among young people has become an important component of climate education and community preparedness. This project explored how creative arts — particularly puppetry and storytelling — can support environmental literacy, emotional resilience and community engagement among middle school students.
Building on the Ready, Set, Resilience (RSR) program developed in collaboration with teachers in eastern North Carolina following hurricanes Florence and Dorian, the team expanded and implemented a resilience-focused curriculum in Durham Public Schools. Working with seven teachers, students delivered classroom lessons and activities focused on ecological systems, community resilience and emotional coping strategies related to climate disruptions. Over the course of the year, the program completed 128 classroom hours and reached more than 1,600 total contact hours with middle school students.
In addition to classroom instruction, the team developed puppetry-based educational tools to communicate resilience concepts through storytelling and performance. Students designed and built six large parade puppets inspired by RSR resilience fables and presented them at community events, including programming at the Durham Museum of Life and Science and the LEAF Global Arts Festival in Asheville. These events combined puppet parades, performances and hands-on environmental learning activities to engage thousands of community members in conversations about climate resilience.
The team also conducted qualitative analysis of classroom experiences using a DEAL (Describe, Examine, Articulate Learning) framework to assess how puppetry-based learning influenced student engagement and learning outcomes. Coding results showed that “connection” emerged as the most common theme across both middle school students and university team members, suggesting that creative storytelling approaches can strengthen students’ sense of connection to their communities, ecosystems and each other. The project continues to refine the Ready, Set, Resilience curriculum and expand opportunities for community engagement through arts-based climate education.
Timing
Fall 2025 – Spring 2026
Team Outputs
Boosting Climate Resilience in the Community: Through Puppets, Parades and Performances (Team profile)
Fostering Climate Resilience Through Education and Arts (Poster presentation at the Fortin Foundation Bass Connections Showcase, April 15, 2026)
Expanded “Ready, Set, Resilience” middle school curriculum
Handmade puppets inspired by climate resilience fables
Puppet performances and environmental education activities at the LEAF Global Arts Festival (Asheville, N.C.)
Community engagement programming at the Museum of Life and Science (Durham, N.C.)
Qualitative analysis of puppetry-based resilience learning using DEAL framework
Teaching materials and puppetry activities for middle school climate resilience education
See related teams, Fostering Climate Resilience Through Education and Arts (2024-2025) and Fostering Climate Resilience Through Education and Arts (2026-2027)