Environmental Emotions

Table of Contents:

Warm-up Exercises
Emotional Continuum
Improvisation on Words for Emotions
Gratitude Circle
Listening to Your Body

Main Exercises
Stream of Consciousness on Environmental Emotions
Emotional Mind Map
Emotional Rhythm
Dictionary Definition for an Environmental Emotion
Freeze Frames on Environmental Emotions
Connection with Nature: Nature Poems

Warm-up Exercises

Aims:
The goal of the environmental emotions warm-up exercises is to create a safe and encouraging group atmosphere and to inspire the participants to observe their own bodies and their emotions that are related to environment. Lower secondary school and upper secondary school: the exercises develop the transversal competences aims of taking care of oneself and managing daily life and well-being competence. Literary art basic education: the exercises develop the aim development as a literary artist by improving sensitivity to the use of one’s senses.

In a Group:

Emotional Continuum
(5 min)

Imagine an emotional continuum between opposite extremes in the classroom space. The participants go to stand at the position that corresponds to the emotions they have about climate change at the moment.

fear – calmness
sorrow – absence of sorrow / only very little sorrow
hope – despair
security – insecurity
anxiety – relaxedness
worry – unworried
excitement – indifference – being petrified
impulse to act – impulse to withdraw

The exercise is an adaptation of the Tunteiden käsittely (“addressing emotions”) exercise by Janette Hannukainen and Veera Kivijärvi in the Rivien välissä: Sanataiteellinen mediakasvatuksen opetusmateriaali yläkouluikäisille (“Between the lines: A literary art media education teaching material for lower secondary school”) (Kirjan talo 2019, p. 22).

Improvisation on Words for Emotions
(10 min)

Verbalizing mental images inspired by various words for emotions. The teacher says aloud one word for an emotion at a time, and the participants react by answering questions about mental images.

Words for emotions:
joy, sorrow, love, hate, fear, hope

Mental images:
– In your opinion, what colour is this emotion?
– If this emotion was a sound, what would it sound like?
– What would this emotion smell like?
– What would this emotion taste like?
– If this emotion was a shape, what shape would it be?
– If you could touch this emotion, what would it feel like
to your hand? Would it be, for instance, smooth, rough, soft, or spiky?
– How much does this emotion weigh in your opinion? Is it light as a feather, for instance, or does it weigh a ton?

Method 1: Each participant writes the mental images inspired by the word on a paper.

Method 2: The group comes up with mental images orally and the teacher writes mental images sparked by each word under that word on the board.

This exercise has been developed by artist-researcher Henna Laininen in cooperation with environmental researcher Panu Pihkala.

Gratitude Circle
(10 min)

The teacher instructs: “Think about one thing, big or small, that you are grateful for today and that you are ready to share with others. It can be a thing that gets you in a good mood or that makes you feel safe. It can be something beautiful that you saw on your way to school. Or maybe it is a person, a place, or an object that is important to you. Lift your thumb when you have come up with your source of gratitude.”

Next, everyone takes turns telling what they are grateful for. According to environmental philosopher Joanna Macy, gratitude is a resource that helps us deal even with the more difficult emotions that stem from the environmental crisis.

Read more about gratitude: Joanna Macy & Chris Johnstone: Active Hope – How to Face the Mess We’re in without Going Crazy ( New World Library 2012).

Alone or in a Group:

Listening to Your Body
(10 min)

Warm-up:
Shake your arms and your legs. Do a few stretches in different directions. What sort of stretch or movement does your body call for just now? Next, squat down and scrunch yourself up as small as you can. While you do this, also scrunch up your face. Now, stand up on your toes, reach up high and stretch yourself as tall as possible, opening your eyes and mouth at the same time. Repeat the scrunch and the reach a couple of times.

The Quiet:
After the warm-up, quiet down. You can do this sitting down or standing up. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Listen to your breath and to your body. Do you become aware of any sensations or emotions? Just notice them, there is no need to change them in any way. In the end, think about something that you are grateful for today. Feel how gratitude spreads as warmth into your chest. Feel gratitude spreading its warmth to your head, to your right arm and hand, your left arm and left hand, your torso, your right leg and your right foot, your left leg and left foot. Feel gratitude filling your entire body. You can now open your eyes.

Main Exercises

Stream of Consciousness
on Environmental Emotions
(25 min)

Aims:
To connect with one’s own emotions through free writing. Debriefing with the group after doing the exercise creates a space for listening to other peoples’ emotions and for sensing the emotional atmosphere in the group. The Stream of Consciousness exercise and the Emotional Mind Map exercise also serve as relatively easily approachable introductions to more intensive-reaching emotional work. Lower secondary school and upper secondary school: the exercise develops the transversal competences aims taking care of oneself and managing daily life as well as well-being competence and interaction competence. Literary art basic education: the exercise develops the aim own voice as a writer – the exercise gives the learner an opportunity to verbalize their own emotions and introduces the stream of consciousness method as a way to initiate the creative process.

Tuning in (10 minutes):
The teacher gives a brief introduction on why it is important to address emotions that are related to climate change. Depending on the target group, this can be done in various ways, for example:

a) Orally:
The teacher reads aloud or covers in their own words the introductory text “Why addressing emotions related to climate change is important” and shows on data projector the images “Emotions sparked by global issues” and “Finns’ emotions related to climate change”.

b) Using video:
Watch the first 6 minutes 50 seconds of the talk “How your climate emotions can save the world” by psychologist Katharina Van Bronswijk at a TEDx event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE_TMzLCI_Y

Exercise (10 minutes):
For six minutes, write down your stream of consciousness on emotions related to climate change. Stream of consciousness means that you let your hand(s) work with the pen or on the keyboard without stopping, just recording everything that happens to cross your mind. You will not be asked to read what you write to anyone.

Begin your text with the words: “When I think about climate change, I feel…” After three minutes, continue writing, this time beginning with the words: “At this moment, I get strength from…” and write for three more minutes. You can use the List of Words for Emotions.

Debriefing (5 minutes):

a) Alone:
Read your text and underline with different colours:
– words or subjects that are repeated often in the text
– thoughts or things you would like to change
– thoughts or things that give you strength

b) With the group:
Each participant chooses 1–3 words from their stream of consciousness and writes them on large pieces of paper. Arranging the papers on the floor of the room or attaching them on the wall of the room, the words collected from the group are used to create a word collage co-authored by the group. Finally, the teacher reads aloud the new text.

An alternative debriefing method
(for groups that enjoy performing):
Each participant underlines from their stream of consciousness one word that they want to share with the others. The participants stand in a circle. Everyone in their turn says their word aloud and performs a posture, movement or gesture they feel is fit to express that word. The other participants echo the word and mirror the physical gesture.

The exercise makes use of the materials produced by the Toivoa ja toimintaa project, such as the process writing exercise by Maija Raikamo available at https://toivoajatoimintaa.fi (in Finnish only).

Emotional Mind Map
(35 min)

Aims:
To become familiar with the vocabulary of enviromental emotions. The participants practise recognising various environmental emotions in their own personal exprience, and understanding and analysing their own emotional landscape and the relationships between various emotions. To learn to share emotions with others and to increase understanding of other people’s emotional landscape. The Emotional Mind Map exercise and the Stream of Consciousness on Environmental Emotions exercise also serve as relatively easily approachable introductions to more far-reaching emotional work. Lower and upper secondary school: the exercise develops the transverse competences aims taking care of oneself and managing daily life as well as well-being competence and interaction competence. Literary art basic education: the exercise develops the aim own voice as a writer – the exercise introduces mind map as an idea development tool, expands vocabulary, and invites participants to create metaphors.

Tuning in (10 minutes):
The teacher gives a brief introduction on why addressing emotions that are related to climate change is important (see the Tuning in section for the Stream of Consciousness on Environmental Emotions exercise).

Exercise (15 minutes):
Familiarize yourself with the list of words for emotions. Pick from the list the words that describe emotions that climate change inspires in you. These emotions can be directly related to climate change or connected to matters that are related to climate change, such as climate activism or forests that sequester carbon and thus moderate climate change. You can also use emotion words that do not appear on the list. Draw a mind map about the emotions you have that are related to climate change. You can, for example, write your strongest emotions with large capital letters and the less powerful emotions with lowercase ones. You can also connect emotion words that are related to each other with lines or arrows and add pictures to your mind map.

An alternative method:
Creative writing groups can use mind maps to work on inventing figures of speech that describe their environmental emotions. Each participant draws a map of an imaginary terrain and names locations on the map with names that combine words describing locations or features of nature with emotions that are related to them ( for example: “mire of misery”, “the endless desert of longing”, “the spring of hope”, “the construction site of courage”).

Debriefing (10 minutes):
Use AnswerGarden ( https://answergarden.ch/) or some other suitable word cloud application to compile a shared mind map of all participants. Every participant chooses from their personal mind map 3–5 emotions that they are most familiar with and enters them into the application. Word clouds are a good tool for easily visualising the variety of emotions in the group, with the most often mentioned ones being emphasized with a larger font.

An alternative debriefing method:
If the atmosphere in the group is safe enough, the debriefing on the mind maps can be done as pair work. This should only take a couple of minutes. If this method is used, the teacher tells the group that participants will be asked to reveal their mind map to their partner up to the extent that they are comfortable with to share it. The teacher also reminds participants beforehand that things that have been revealed in this exercise must not be shared with outsiders. If a participant does not want to reveal their mind map, they can share how they felt when creating it.

The Emotional Mind Map exercise was developed by the Toivoa ja toimintaa project. A more thorough introduction to the exercise can be found on their website (in Finnish only) https://toivoajatoimintaa.fi/tunteet/tunnetehtavia/#2_Tunteiden_kasitekartta The exercise was adapted for this teaching material by Henna Laininen, and the creative writing version was developed by Pia Krutsin.

Emotional Rhythm
(20 min)

Aims:
To develop distance between oneself and one’s own environmental emotion by the means of language play. To lighten up a serious theme by introducing a humoristic exercise as a change of pace. The exercise is well-suited as an additional exercise after the Stream of Consciousness on Environmental Emotions exercise or the Emotional Mind Map exercise. Lower and upper secondary school: the exercise develops the transverse competences aims cultural competence, interaction and self-expression as well as well-being competence and interaction competence. Literary art basic education: the exercise develops the aim own voice as a writer – the exercise introduces production of experimental texts utilising constraints and exploring textual rhythm.

Exercise (20 minutes):
1. Choose one of the environmental emotions that you have noted either in your stream of consciousness or in your mind map. Letting the words flow without slowing down to edit your thoughts, write a text seven lines in length that describes this emotion in more detail.

2. Use the following scheme to create a new text that is based on the text you just wrote.

1) Copy lines 1 and 2 of your original text as they are.

2) Pick two consecutive words from line 2 of your original text, and make them line 3 of your new text.

3) For line 4 of your new text, repeat line 3 of your original text as it is.

4) Pick two more words from line 2 of your original text and make them the new line 5.

5) For line 6 of your new text, repeat line 4 of your original text as it is.

6) Pick 2 random syllables or letters from line 4 of your original text and repeat them several times in an arbitrary order for lines 7 and 8 of the new text.

7) Pick 3 words from line 5 of your original text and create lines 9-13 of the new text using just those 3 words in a random order word flow.

8) Next, repeat line 1 of your original text to create line 14 of the new text.

9) Pick one word from line 6 of your original text and make that your line 15.

10) For line 16 of the new text, first take the first 2 words of line 1 of your original text, then add the last two words of line 7 of your original text after them.

The stone from my childhood represents to me some kind of connection with nature.
Now climate change makes me frustrated and angry –
Frustrated and
Adversarial politics rises anger
Makes furious
When I think about climate change, I think about its effect on
the entire world.
think cli-cli-cli-cli-think-cli-cli-cli-cli think-think
cli-cli-cli think-cli cli-cli think-cli-think cli-cli cli-think-cli
Childhood stone rises rises stone childhood
rises stone stone stone
risesrisesrises rises rises
childhood rises childhood
stonestonestonestonestone childhood
The stone from my childhood represents to me some kind of connection with nature.
Tattoo
The stone over frustration?

A poem created using the rhythm scheme. By a participant of the Ilmastonmuutos minussa (“climate change in me”) course at the Adult Education Centre of the City of Helsinki, 2019, course instructor: Henna Laininen.

Dictionary Definition
for an Environmental Emotion
(30 min)

Aims:
To work towards a more accurate verbalization of one’s own emotion and consider it from various perspectives. As a form, the dictionary definition helps create distance between the emotion and the individual experiencing it. The exercise is well-suited as an additional exercise after the Stream of Consciousness on Environmental Emotions exercise or the Emotional Mind Map exercise. Lower and upper secondary school: the exercise develops the transverse competences aims cultural competence, interaction and self-expression as well as well-being competence and interaction competence. Literary art basic education: the exercise develops the aim own voice as a writer – the exercise lets the learner practise verbalizing their own emotions, introduces dictionary definition as a text type, and invites participants to create new words.

Tuning in (5 minutes):
Read the dictionary definitions for environmental emotions ”Heatening” and ”Onety” (at the end of this exercise).

Exercise (15 minutes):
From your stream of consciousness or your mind map, choose one emotion you want to examine in more detail. With the help of the following questions, try to write a dictionary definition for that emotion:

– What name would describe the emotion most accurately?
– What are the types of situations that inspire this emotion?
– What sorts of bodily sensations is the emotion accompanied by?
– How long does the emotion generally last?
– How intensive is the emotion usually?
– What sort of outward behaviour can the emotion manifest as?
– Is it appropriate to display this emotion in various situations?
– How wide-spread is the emotion among various demographic groups?
– How could this emotion be put to use?

Debriefing (10 minutes)
(in case the additional exercise Freeze Frames on Environmental Emotions is omitted):

a) In pairs:
The participants split into pairs and read their texts to each other or tell about the contents of their definition in their own words (see the Alternative debriefing method for the Emotional Mind Map exercise.

b) In a group:
Participants are asked to volunteer to read their texts out loud or to reveal the name they have given to their emotion. The emotion-words invented by the group can be collected as a list on the board.

c) Individually:
When you’re ready, read your text silently in your head. How did you feel, writing this text? Who would you like to read this text to or to tell about this emotion of yours? Who could be the appropriate listener: the teacher of the group, a family member, a household pet, or a tree that grows by your walking route? Do remember that it is a good idea to have an open and accepting attitude towards your emotions. There is no need to attempt to change them, and just talking about your emotions to someone you trust can already make you feel better.

The idea of the exercise is based on the Utopedia glossary by the group Rakkaudesta. See: www.utopedia.fi. Exercise was further developed and adapted for this teaching material by Henna Laininen.

Heatening

The way in which the notions of burning oil, a warming planet, environmental destruction, and growing desire meld. Hot weather, hot bodies. Burning oil, burning love. Accelerating development and carnal excitement. The beauty of disappearing species and bound bodies.
     Pleasure tied to the destruction of nature. A gambler is heatened by the rising of the stakes and an unfaithful lover by the risk of getting caught. Today’s humans are heatened by their own way of living. They have amassed riches, but it is possible to lose everything in an instant. Being constantly haunted by the sense of doing something that is forbidden while that very thing also feels so lovely, and it is too late to back off anyway. The roulette wheel spins, the permafrost melts, the Earth looks like a gambling chip when viewed from space.

By Matias Riikonen, from the Utopedia glossary by the group Rakkaudesta, www.utopedia.fi.

Onety

A state in which a human becomes aware that they are a temporary combination of natural phenomena and creatures, and a part of a larger whole that surpasses the borders of thinking. In onety, nature breathes through the human, and the human opens up to the existence of microbes, the atmosphere, solar radiation, the run of elks, and the growth of moss, because they are all component parts of the human. In onety, the borders between the species break. Under onety the human recognizes that they are on the move, that they are a part of an organic landslide along with foxes, black-throated loons, bees, fish, bishop’s weed, and pines, and looks at themselves through other creatures. Onety prevents destruction.

By Elisa Aaltola, from the Utopedia glossary by the group Rakkaudesta, www.utopedia.fi..

Freeze Frames on Environmental Emotions (30 min)

Aims:
To experiment with the physical expression of environmental emotions and to learn being seen with one’s own emotions. Physical expression helps to channel emotion, introduces humour to lighten up addressing a serious topic and can help strengthen group spirit, if the atmosphere in the group is safe to begin with. The exercise is suited for groups whose members enjoy performing. The exercise can be done, for instance, as an additional exercise after the Emotional Mind Map exercise or the Dictionary Definition for an Environmental Emotion exercise. Lower and upper secondary school: the exercise develops the transverse competences aims cultural competence, interaction and self-expression as well as well-being competence, interaction competence and multidisciplinary creative competence. Literary art basic education: the exercise develops the aim own voice as a writer – the exercise includes experimenting with physical expression of texts, using drama as a method.

In small groups (3–5 individuals):
Group members volunteer to read their dictionary definitions to each other or to tell about their environmental emotions in their own words. After this, the group works together to come up with ideas for a “live freeze frame” based on the environmental emotions that the members have introduced. The freeze frame can portray a number of the group’s environmental emotions or just one of them. For the freeze frame, each member of the group assumes a position that portrays or describes an environmental emotion. The freeze frame can also come alive with movement and sound, if the group members so decide. The freeze frames are performed to the other groups and after this, the group can either read the dictionary definitions out loud or introduce the environmental emotions portrayed in the freeze frame in a more informal manner. At the end of each group’s turn, their freeze frame gets a round of applause. The teacher should remind the participants that not all group members are required to perform: other possible roles include a reader of the texts or a director of the freeze frame.

Debriefing:
After each performance, the audience has an opportunity to tell what they liked about the performance and the texts. Before the feedback is given, the teacher reminds participants that the idea is to offer positive, supportive feedback.

The idea for this exercise comes from researcher, drama educator Anna Lehtonen, and the exercise has been further developed and adapted for this teaching material by Henna Laininen.

Connection with Nature:
Nature Poems
(75 min)

Aims:
The aim of the exercise is to strengthen the connection with nature by moving out in nature while focusing on various sensory experiences. The exercise is also suited for relaxation and recovery, if previous lessons have dealt with more serious and demanding themes such as environmental emotions. Upper and lower secondary school: the exercise develops the transverse competences aims cultural competence, interaction and self-expression; taking care of oneself and managing daily life, as well as well-being competence, interaction competence and ethical and environmental competence. Literary art basic education: the exercise develops the aims development as a literary artist and own voice as a writer – the exercise introduces sensitive observation of the environment utilizing various senses as well as poetry as a literary genre, and experiments with environment-based writing and expands the participants’ vocabulary.

Tuning in (5 minutes):
Read the nature poems by Risto Rasa at the end of this exercise. Is there a poem that you particularly like? Why?

Exercise (60 minutes):
Take a walk in nature near your home or school. Have note-taking equipment with you. During your walk, record:

1) Sensory observations:
What do you see, hear, feel, taste, or smell? If you observe something interesting, you can stop and focus on it in more detail. Listen to birdsong with your eyes closed, feel the surface of a tree trunk or moss, taste a plant or a berry that you are familiar with and know to be edible.

2) Surprising details:
Which details in nature grab your attention, and what associations do they bring to your mind? Record also the weirder observations: “A yellow leaf looks like the face of a smiling old man”, “Orange liquid is oozing from a tree stump, I wonder if it’s poisonous?”

3) Emotions: How does moving in nature make you feel today? Does some detail of nature that you have observed spark new emotions? What might the plants or animals that you have encountered feel? Record your observations: “I feel joy at finding chanterelles”, “I’m still grumpy about not sleeping well last night”, “I wonder if that squirrel misses his friends”.

Next, return indoors and create a poem where you quote from your notes, using material from all points of the list above: sensory observations, details, and emotions. You can use the following scheme:

1) Describe a detail in nature.
2) Relate a sensory observation about nature.
3) Reveal an emotion or insight related to the situation.

You can also add new words to the poem and use the list of Empowering Environmental Emotions. Perhaps some of the words on the list could work well for describing the emotions you experienced in nature?

Debriefing (10 minutes):
Either in pairs or in small groups, read the poems and discuss them. Was there a part of the poem that was particularly memorable to you? What did you like about the poem?

The sunlight is yellow now
it gives the pine trunks
on the opposite bank
a bright glow.

And the forest is as if scents
were being cooked

Up on a birch branch
              a burl that’s shaped like an ear,
                     seems to be lis’ning

A decayed tree.
A woodpecker, climbing the trunk,
studies the menu of a woodworm.

In the grass. I see a tree and blue sky.
A small cloud.
It probably won’t dare to pass over me alone.

Greenflies nap
in the foliage.
The forest is full of
the sound of hearts.

Night after night,
the forest darkens.
Off a shrub,
an ant twists off
a raw lingonberry
for a lamp to the anthill.

Birds write
the book of changes,
leave it unfinished,
the trees take over.
When it’s almost finished,
snow takes it over,
starts from the beginning.

Risto Rasa: Tuhat purjetta: kootut runot ( “A thousand sails: collected poems”) (Otava Publishing Company, 1992)

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