CREATING HARMONIES AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE

A major concern in educating children about climate change is the significant increase in eco-anxiety that it causes. Music may provide a mechanism of expression that can allow for students to learn about climate change, while also to identify positive actions of change. Music has long been a voice for protest and processing sadness and anger during difficult times, and this emotional connection is a strength of the arts. Choral music, in particular, has been identified as having many benefits, two of which are that it helps you feel like part of a group or community, and it releases oxytocin, which helps to set up a feeling of trust and good-will towards the others in the group.

The authors have a unique opportunity this year to study the effects of choral music on cognitive, affective, and behavioral development in children aged 10-18. For their 150th anniversary celebration in 2024, the Mendelssohn Chorus of Philadelphia commissioned a major choral piece about climate change and approached Commonwealth Youthchoirs to collaborate with the composer, Dr. Melissa Dunphy to bring the voice of children into the text. Our mixed methods research is documenting the effect of participating in this process—in the creative design, the learning of the music, and performance of the music—and how it may influence children’s cognitive, affective, and behavioral relationship with climate change. We will share a preliminary model focusing on cognitive, affective, and behavioral domains that address education, eco-anxiety, and empowerment, and our in-process methodological approaches.

Discussions with the students during the music development phase reveal that the majority of the youth choir members report having learned very little about climate change in school within a large metropolitan city. Many also note that this education was filled with “doomsday” scenarios and had little follow up or consistency through the curriculum, leading to further confusion and anxiety. Students reported feeling that co-production of the music would help students feel empowered in their ability to say what is on their minds, and may help them communicate with older generations.