Abstract

Climate change scenarios project higher flood risk, so knowing how households can increase socio-ecological resilience is essential. Children rarely feature in UK policy guidance about how households prepare for floods, and research is limited about children’s roles in local resilience building. Using a participatory action research, child-centred methodology we explored (7-9year old) children’s knowledge, skills and dispositions in discussions about flooding, suggesting processes for effectively engaging them in Learning for Resilience (LfR). Results suggest children have existing knowledge, skills and dispositions concerning local and international flood risk originating from various sources. They displayed cross-cultural learning, embryonic systems-thinking, and understandings of theirs and others’ agency, including adults’ reasons for un-preparedness, revealing awareness of risk underestimation and deferral/denial of risk. The paper offers framing of a new taxonomy for young children’s significant ‘LfR’ and seven ‘top tips’ to facilitate, design and implement learning strategies with children around environmental risk, in the UK and internationally, in climate change contexts.

摘要

气候变化情景预测洪水风险更高，因此了解家庭如何提高社会生态复原力至关重要。英国关于家庭如何为洪水做准备的政策指导很少涉及儿童，而且关于儿童在当地复原力建设中的作用的研究也很有限。使用参与式行动研究、以儿童为中心的方法，我们探索了（7-9 岁）儿童在洪水讨论中的知识、技能和性格，提出了有效地让他们参与学习恢复力 (LfR) 的过程。结果表明，儿童拥有有关来自各种来源的当地和国际洪水风险的现有知识、技能和倾向。他们展示了跨文化学习、胚胎系统思维以及对自己和他人的能动性的理解，包括成年人未做好准备的原因，揭示对风险低估和推迟/拒绝风险的认识。该论文为幼儿的重要“LfR”和七个“重要提示”提供了新分类法的框架，以在英国和国际气候变化背景下促进、设计和实施与儿童有关环境风险的学习策略。