‘Learning for resilience’ as the climate changes: discussing flooding, adaptation and agency with children

Figures & data

Table 1. Visual aids, discussion topics and semi-structured interview questions.

PowerPoint content	Discussion focus	Semi-structured question(s)	Rationale for question
3 photos depicting natural causes of flooding	What causes flooding	What happens when it floods? Does anywhere you know flood?	To allow children to talk openly about their own experiences/knowledge of flooding
2 pictures showing fun aspects of rain – jumping in puddles	Rain can be fun	Have you ever had a rainy walk/ fun in puddles?	To set children at ease. To orientate to thinking about past experiences. To provide a sense of perspective.
3 pictures showing damage of floods – cars and houses flooded	Flooding can cause damage and can be dangerous	What sort of damage could a flood cause? Why is it dangerous?	To allow children to imagine what it might be like for those involved in a flood.
1 picture of map of the world with small pictures showing where floods happen	Global examples of floods. They happen all over the world with similar consequences	Where are these places?	To gauge sense of global occurrence. Allows consideration and discussion of other cultures.
2 pictures with people in the image – showing cars damaged and people sitting on the roof of a flooded house	Flooding can cause problems for people	What would life be like for these people?	To allow children to consider the effects and impacts of flooding.
Text saying it’s important to be prepared	Ideas for being prepared	How can we get prepared? Sometimes people don’t prepare even though they know there is a risk – why not?	To identify if children have a sense of the need to be prepared and what their ideas might be. To assess children’s understanding of adults’ non-action and the reasons for this.

Table 2. Children’s understanding of adults’ non-preparedness.

Disconnection	Vulnerability/ lack of information	Denial/Deferral of Risk	Socio-Economic barriers
‘When they watch too much TV their brains get all weird and they just don’t know’.	‘Some people don’t know what is the internet’	‘Because they don’t think it’s true’	‘Some might not have equipment’
‘Too busy, too lazy. I just want to watch T.V’.	‘They’re silly’	‘It might happen in lots of days’ time’	‘They don’t have equipment, don’t have any money’
‘I want to stay in bed’	‘Is it because they are dumb, not dumb. Is it because there’s something wrong with them?’	‘Some people just don’t bother. They think its only water, what would happen? I’ve got bricks and wood’	‘They couldn’t buy the wellies cause they had not enough [money]’
‘They’re lazy. Watching TV too much’	‘If people haven’t had a flood they wouldn’t know what to do’.	‘They say it could be a flood, but its only could…’.

Table 3. A taxonomy of significant learning* for resilience with children’s exploration of flood risk and contributions to community capital.

Significant learning	Capabilities or capacities evidenced in the results
Foundational knowledge: understanding and remembering information for resilience	Local experiential knowledge Cultural knowledge (of other people and places) Identifying adaptive options Inter-generational knowledge
Application: Skills for resilience	Embryonic systems thinking Problem-solving
Integration: Connecting with people and places	Cross-cultural learning
Caring: Attitudes/dispositions/feelings for resilience	Enthusiasm/ empowerment Willingness to participate
Caring: Developing values for resilience	Concern for others Value diversity Taking personal responsibility
Human dimension: Learning about oneself	Surfacing existing knowledge, skills and attitudes Perceiving own agency and autonomy Recognising potential and social capital
Human dimension: Learning about others	Intergenerational conversations/interactions Understanding others’ agency Listening Storytelling

cf. Fink’s (2013) Taxonomy of significant learning.

Table 4. Seven ‘top tips’ with and for designing and implementing LfR initiatives for young children.

Tip	Design	Implementation Process	Research evidence-based approach	Link to research literature and theory
1	Ensure learning initiative is child-led	Provide scaffolding and loose structure with a skilled adult facilitator	Children had existing knowledge and questions that can provide a starting point for discussion. Skilled adult can guide discussion through questions and the introduction of content. Training may be needed.	Child-led learning (Greig, Taylor, and MacKay 2012; Davis 2015)
2	Use cognitively appropriate, intuitive, visual stimuli	Ensure content and conversation is tailored to cognitive (st)age with skilled facilitator	Pictures on a laptop stimulate discussion. Children can consider other’s perspectives and think about flooding globally. Some knowledge of cognitive stages of development should be pre-requisite in devising content and initiatives for children. Training may be needed.	Cognitive development in children (Piaget 1972)
3	Give children the space to lead discussion: small groups; encourage questions	Emphasise the experiential, making place -based and making locally relevant	Children mentioned experiential memories more than any other source of information about flooding.	Experience-based learning (cf. Kolb, 1984)
4	Capitalise on scalability of impacts, building out from the local	Encourage peer-peer storytelling and capitalise on diversity	Children shared knowledge and memories from families, experiences in different cultural settings, and had an appreciation of different (and similar) risks and climates.	Children’s strategies in peer talk and learning (e.g. Cekaite et al. 2014)
5	Build in opportunity to consider connections and perspectives.	Prompt reflections on connections (systems thinking). Build in opportunities for empathy	Children displayed some ability to engage in systems thinking talking about knock-on effects of flooding, and consider different cultural perspectives and adaptations. Children displayed emotional and cognitive empathy in their responses	Systems thinking in children (Ben-Zvi-Assaraf and Orion 2010) Empathy (Zahn-Waxler and Radke-Yarrow 1990)
6	Encourage participation through active learning experiences	Build in creative opportunities to deepen learning and connection	Children talk in groups while taking part in a creative process following the group discussion. This allows rehearsal of information which could lead to deeper connection to content and memory formation.	Active learning theory; learning as a process of meaning making (Monk and Silman 2011); children’s voice and participation (Bucknall 2012)
7	Focus on realistic, achievable positive actions	Use intuitive (action-based) language when talking about adaptation	Children intuitively understood what a ‘grab bag’ was designed to do. They were able to reflect and act to add appropriate resources.	‘Grab bags’ as DRR Strategy (Pickering et al. 2018)

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