Reimagining climate change futures: A review of arts-based education programs

The 21st century is characterised by unprecedented challenges, primarily driven by climate change and rapid technological advancements. This systematic literature review explores arts approaches in climate change education, motivated by a research project, Artefacts of the Future 2050, which invites young people to design and create an artefact representing a significant moment in the transition to our future world. The application of arts-based approaches to futures thinking, or futuring, specifically to sustainability and climate change in education contexts, has been taken up globally, producing encouraging outcomes. To better understand educators and researchers’ growing interest in arts-based approaches to futuring, we systematically selected and reviewed 25 papers from 11 countries involving students and/or teachers across early childhood, primary, secondary, and tertiary settings. Nearly all studies shared a strong awareness of human impacts on the environment and a deep concern for the future. Frequently, arts-based approaches were chosen with the aim of stimulating a transformative shift in young people’s understandings of the world and their place in it. A range of outcomes were reported, including cognitive, emotional, physical, and other (aesthetic, spiritual, imaginative, etc.) effects. The physical nature of these pedagogies was critical to achieving desired educational outcomes. The reviewed show a variety of arts-based methods and disciplinary approaches used to offer affordances for young people in exploring, confronting and engaging with climate change as well as fostering futures literacy. The review also raises questions about what we mean by ‘futures literacy’ and how this can be supported by arts-based education.