Educating for psychological, community, and ecological resilience: a case study from North Carolina, USA

Contemporary global challenges are complex, as are their impacts. For instance, a hurricane can erode shorelines, destroy homes, damage municipal stormwater infrastructure, and trigger personal and community-wide trauma. Resilience approaches are needed that address this wide array of impacts, particularly as climate change intensifies the challenges. Increasingly, resilience science seeks interdisciplinary strategies, acknowledging that impacts of climate change and other challenges span ecological, social, political, and economic systems. In parallel, resilience education has begun to employ multiple approaches, such as drawing from ecological education and trauma-informed pedagogy in tandem. This practitioner perspective argues for the necessity of such holistic approaches to resilience education and offers one example of a middle school resilience curriculum that weaves together psychological, ecological, and community resilience concepts. We briefly outline the co-productive and participatory writing process, present the current product, summarize initial feedback that highlights the potential and value of this approach, and outline current imaginings for future applications. We hope our experience might serve as an inspiration and a helpful framework for resilience educators working in formal and informal settings across diverse age groups.