User:Heather5523/sandbox

Ecophobia is the feeling of powerlessness to prevent cataclysmic environmental change, it is part of climate anxiety. The term was coined by environmental educator David Sobel in his 1996 book Beyond Ecophobia: Reclaiming the Heart in Nature Education. This phenomena has been theorized to be stemmed from developmentally inappropriate environmental education. Environmental education in schools often provide students information on environmental problems and disasters without also fostering a sense of agency within these students that would further lead to environmentalism. This can lead to an overwhelming fear of environmental disasters while feeling like there is no solution.

In order to mitigate the development of ecophobia, it is suggested that environmental curriculum be developmentally appropriate with activities that include real world applications, which will allow students to come up with possible solutions for environment problems that they can implement. This emphasis on solutions and promotion of critical thinking should promote Mitigation of ecophobia can be as simple as connecting an environmental problem that a student may be learning to an action that can be taken to mitigate this problem. An example of this would be students learning about how garbage that collects on beaches and in oceans impact the animal and plant life that live in these environments, and then having a project where the students either go themselves to clean the beach or possibly plan a local initiative to get the community involved.