Youth Program
Common Earth Insights: Developing a Systemic Understanding of Climate Change
Are you interested in how to meaningfully respond to climate change? Are you in high school, or taking a gap year to figure out what's next?
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Join us on a journey of reflection, knowledge and insight to leverage positive environmental change. Ensure a healthy planet now and for future generations by exploring how and where to intervene for sustainability and bring about the change we all need!
About This Course
Common Earth began as a comprehensive and unique learning program for adults looking for ways to combat climate change, offering a profound and strategic understanding of how to create successful environmental interventions. Participants of the emerging community work towards a caring society.
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After several successful adult modules, it became clear that our community was missing perhaps the most important voices of all: our youth. After all, it is our youth who are inheriting the current state of the planet, will be the decision-makers of tomorrow and have the best chance of changing our current trajectory. In response we created and launched the Common Earth Youth Program, an accessible and engaging way for young people to come together for a healthier planet.
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The Youth Program offers the same core themes and values of the adult program. The conversations, presentations and texts are tailored to be engaging to young global citizens.
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The facilitators offer participants support in navigating the concepts presented and ensure a safe, inclusive environment for engaging conversations. Participants are encouraged to make meaningful connections among ideas and come up with possible solutions to the crisis we are facing while allowing caring community to emerge.
Course Themes
The overarching themes of the program include systems thinking, the journey of the universe, the human experience and the wisdom of nature, all through the lens of the causes and effects of the climate crisis and how we can most effectively respond.
The Climate Crisis
How did we get here and how to move forward?
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the effects of human activity and the current state of the planet
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ways to counteract climate distress
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stories of people working towards restoring ecological balance
Systems Thinking
What are the factors and interactions that lead to potential outcomes?
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the complexity and connection of diverse systems
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characteristics of interconnection vs. fragmentation
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making visible the assumptions and processes that inform our choices
The Journey of the Universe
How are we all connected?
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from the Universe and the big bang to present-day Earth
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the history and events that shaped our world
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the human story within the larger picture
The Human Experience
How are our views of the world formed?
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the role of mind, consciousness and thought in the human experience
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the divided brain: how the western world is governed
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exploring Indigenous worldviews
The Wisdom of Nature
What solutions already exist within natural processes?
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carbon sequestration through regenerative agriculture
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strategies for biomimetic design
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technology as a tool for understanding natural equilibrium
This land is our land and it's part of me and part of everything I am and everything I do.
- Autumn Peltier, Activist
Our Sessions
The course is made of sessions that are interactive and promote a welcoming environment to foster open conversations and a co-learning space. Sessions are facilitated by former participants of the Common Earth course who have different life perspectives as well as various backgrounds. Young former participants can also become co-facilitators of the course.
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Sessions will include a variety of:
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Conversations
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Small group activities
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Exploring and applying systems thinking tools
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Presentations and Videos
Every session is finalized with an inspiring story of individuals or groups that are fighting the climate crisis and succeeding at it.
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For each session, we ask participants to come prepared through prework, which can vary from 1 to 2 hours of weekly activities – a mix of reading texts and articles, watching short videos and applying tools that are explored through the course.
20 Weeks
Students in high school or people taking a gap year
2 hours weekly
Under 15 participants
Learning Outcomes
The Common Earth Youth Program extends understandings of environmental and sustainability issues to deeper and broader applications, effects and outcomes.
Beyond personal and community learning, Common Earth supports school curricula, particularly the social sciences, the humanities and geography, and contextualizes studies in the physical and natural sciences. Topics are approached from an intersectional environmental justice perspective clarifying the interconnectedness of concerns across the social justice spectrum.
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Raised awareness of interconnectedness of seemingly disconnected issues
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New perspectives on the human experience
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Transferrable skills developed through applying systems thinking to understand and connect our immediate and broader systems
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Thinking critically about current and alternative societal narratives
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Building resilience and self-efficacy through a co-learning, caring community
Program Options
Individuals are welcome to register for our free, global, online course or free, local, in-person course. Dates, times and (in-person) locations vary. Check back often to find dates, times and locations that work for you.
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Common Earth also offers programs tailored to individual schools, boards and youth organizations in a variety of formats. Please contact us for details about this exciting opportunity.
Let us fight for a livable future and present.
- Txai Surui – Indigenous Activist
We must change almost everything in our current societies
- Greta Thunberg
What Participants Say
Wesley, Grade 12
Common Earth was a program like none other I had ever heard of. Each meeting introduced new and more efficient ways of thinking that I could build off and use in other parts of my life. The people I met were such a big indicator of the types of conversations that would arise. These conversations would often reveal diverse perspectives and understandings that would offer another lens that
I had not considered.
Clara, Grade 12
The Common Earth Youth Program gave me insight into the climate crisis but also my peers and the way that they view the world around them. It gave me and many of my friends a safe space to reflect on ourselves and many other issues. I was so happy to find that the program was so community oriented and how much I was encouraged to explore my own preconceptions about the climate crisis as well as other factors. I felt that the course gave me a deeper understanding of the world in a space that was inclusive and judgement free.
Ella, Grade 10
The program has completely changed the way I think and view every situation. I’m more attuned to different perspectives, especially nature’s. My view on the climate crisis has changed to positively hopeful, after witnessing incredible work already being done. Now when I go to school, or interact in social situations, I instinctively think from a common earth perspective. One that is supportive of different views and perspectives. One that is always learning and developing. One that is kind and hopeful. One that is unconsciously already within us just waiting to be unlocked. One that is shared.