Climate Disasters, Anxiety, and Learning: Is Trauma-Informed Climate Pedagogy Needed in Planning Education?

Climate change is central to planning education and impacts many students personally. However, little research assesses whether planning students who experience climate trauma learn and respond to climate curricula differently. Based on a survey at the University of California, Irvine, this paper finds that climate-traumatized planning students did not report lower climate literacy, but did experience more climate anxiety and derived no special benefit from climate curricula in terms of coping skills. Trauma-informed climate pedagogy is therefore needed to empower future planners with both the climate knowledge and the emotional literacy needed to envision a better future.