Featured Project
Youth Climate Justice Activism Interview Study
How do youth climate justice activists experience and sustain their involvement in the movement? How do they envision climate-just futures?
This interview study examined how young climate justice activists in the United States understand, experience, and sustain their involvement in movements for climate justice.
Drawing on in-depth interviews with young activists, the project explored activism as a form of education, youth critiques of climate change education, intergenerational tensions and solidarities, and the counter-stories young people use to challenge dominant climate narratives.
The study positions youth as educators, organizers, storytellers, and agents of systems-level transformation.
Distribution of participants during the interviews
RESEARCH GOALS
Examine how youth climate justice activists understand, experience, and sustain their involvement in the climate justice movement.
Explore young activists’ experiences of climate change education and their recommendations for justice-driven, action-oriented educational change.
Investigate activism itself as a form of education, including how youth activists learn through the movement and educate others.
Analyze the counter-stories young activists use to challenge dominant climate narratives and motivate systems-level change.
Examine intergenerational tensions, adultism, and the conditions needed for solidarity-driven intergenerational climate justice.
Explore young activists’ visions of climate-just futures and the role of radical, ecopolitical imagination in social transformation.
Why this work matters
This project shifts understandings of youth climate activism from a story of anxiety or symbolic participation to one of political agency, democratic participation, intergenerational justice, and collective learning and action for systems change.
Major Findings
Climate Change Education
Young activists described mainstream climate change education as often sparse, depoliticized, science-centric, or inadequate, and called for climate education that is justice-driven, action-oriented, and designed to equip learners of all ages to participate in systems-level change.
They also experienced activism as education, describing themselves both as learners of the movement and as climate justice educators who teach peers, adults, policymakers, and the public through workshops, school visits, teach-ins, curriculum development, digital resources, social media, advocacy training, and protest.
Publications
Trott, C. D. (2024). Activism as education in and through the youth climate justice movement. British Educational Research Journal. Advance online publication. | Read Here
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Trott, C. D. (2024). Envisioning action-oriented and justice-driven climate change education: Insights from youth climate justice activists. Children & Society, 38(5), 1802–1823. | Read Here
Trott, C. D. (2024). “It can’t just be the younger people”: Exploring young activists’ perspectives on intergenerational tensions and solidarities for climate justice. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 34, e70001.
Trott, C. D. (2025). Rewriting the climate story with young climate justice activists. Geographical Research, 63(1), 134–152. | Read Here
Trott, C. D. (2025). What would it mean to win? Imagining alternative ecopolitical futures with young climate justice activists. In B. R. Barnes, M. Fernandes-Jesus, C. D. Trott, & G. Barnwell (Eds.), Community, psychology, and climate justice (pp. 23–43). Springer. | Read Here
Trott, C. D. (2026). Ambivalent adultism: Theorizing hostile and benevolent adultism as barriers to intergenerational climate justice. In S. Akram & B. Bowman (Eds.), Routledge handbook of young people’s environmental activism (pp. 92–104). Routledge. | Read Here