Pilot Study Phase
In phase one of the study, members of the team delivered a workshop to a state school in in Uruguay (Liceo Nº6 – Bauzá), a central institution in Montevideo with a diverse student population from various areas of the city. There were 87 Participants who took part in the study, of which there were 62 females (71.26%); 24 were males (27.59%); and one did not provide their gender (1.15%). Ages ranged from 16 to 19 years old. They all took part in a session split into 3 distinct parts:
- Part one saw participants complete a survey answering questions to understand their understanding, emotions and sense of agency relating to the climate crisis, before taking part in the workshop.
- Participants are exposed to a narrative surrounding the climate crisis with a specific set of features, either:
- Positive narrative: Polluters & Plunderers: The Roots of Africa’s Crises- WoMin African Alliance
- Negative narrative: SAPIENS – The dystopia after climate change. Award-winning SciFi short film by Lukas Klösel
These narratives were not bespoke, but pre-existing, languageless narratives that were already available online. After exposure to the narrative, students took part in a class discussion to ensure their understanding of the plot, before they were put into working groups where they created a narrative surrounding the climate crisis. They worked in groups (maximum of 5 per group) and created their own stories, using participant numbers to ensure their submissions were anonymous. They were asked to consider seven factors to consider for their narratives, with the questions designed as guiding principles to support participants in their own writing process:
- ¿Dónde se desarrolla el relato? Where is the story based?
- ¿Cuál es el conflicto climático? What is the climate conflict you are presenting?
- ¿Quiénes son los personajes? Who are the characters?
- ¿Qué pasa en la historia? What happens in the story?
- ¿Cómo termina? How does it end?
- ¿Qué emociones van a incluir en el relato? What emotions will you include in the story?
- ¿Qué efecto buscan producir? What is the desired effect?
Following the group task, students were handed another survey (of the same questions) with the additional question reflecting on how they felt about the group writing task.
After the conclusion of the workshops, there were two main levels of analysis: a quantitative look at the responses to the survey questions before and after the task, as well as a qualitative analysis of the emotions and sense of agency expressed in the narratives developed by students.
Findings
Preliminary findings showed that students had a tendency to create negative narratives about the crisis and struggled to imagine positive narratives. The most commonly desired effect for students was to raise awareness for the issues and they relied on negative narratives for this purpose. In addition, they struggled to locate the climate conflict locally, despite at the time of the workshop, Montevideo experiencing severe drought and water shortages. Instead, narratives often took place in locations stereotypical of climate stories such as the oceans and in desert regions, demonstrating a lower risk perception, or in generic locations to which they show no specific attachment.
The analysis of the surveys adds some interesting context to the activity as a pedagogical intervention, finding not only improved awareness in climate change following the story writing activity, but also an improved sense of agency across participants, showing the value in conducting creative narrative sessions. Though the story writing process increased agency alone, this effect was even stronger in narratives where agency was also assigned to the protagonist in their stories. Even if the narratives created were not positive themselves, or included no agency in the narratives, the students’ awareness of issues and sense of agency in themselves was increased, showing the value in the creative intervention. The preliminary results showed that when exposed to both narratives, students tended to use negative framing as the cognitive narrative schemes for understanding the climate crisis.