exercise · all tools
Climate Emotions Wheel
A color wheel of climate-related emotions (anger, fear, sadness, positivity and their finer shades) used as a check-in and vocabulary tool: participants locate and name what they feel about the climate crisis, normalize it in conversation, and build emotional granularity as a foundation for engagement rather than paralysis.
Prerequisites
- Sharing is invitational; naming an emotion privately is full participation
- Climate grief and fear can surface strongly, especially with youth — hold time to land what appears and point to next steps (agency), don't open and leave open
- Educators should know local referral options when distress exceeds the setting
Practical
- Time
- 10-30 min + 10 landing
- Group
- 1–∞ · individual, pairs, small-group, large-group
- Settings
- in-person, online, self-guided
- Materials
- Printed or projected wheel
- Mechanisms
- emotional-processing, cognitive-reframing
- Change scope
- state → skill · repeatable
Origin & where it lives
Climate Mental Health Network (based on Pihkala's climate-emotions research) — Climate psychology / emotion-granularity research
Instructions: open online
In this directory via CLARITY Toolbox and Teacher's Guide
A cross-pollination exemplar: originated by Climate Mental Health Network, carried into education via the CLARITY toolbox (whose trauma-informed teacher's guide is the right companion reading), and usable far beyond climate contexts as an emotional-granularity practice.
status: checked · added 2026-08-25