Exploring Climate Awareness and Anxiety in Teens: An Expert-Driven AI Perspective

Climate awareness and climate anxiety often go hand in hand.The growing awareness of climate change among young people is increasingly shadowed by climate anxiety, a condition marked by profound stress, fear, and a sense of helplessness stemming from overwhelming information on environmental crises and perceived inaction by authorities. Our proposal is an innovative approach using Large Language Model (LLM)-based chatbots to support children and adolescents in fostering climate awareness, managing climate anxiety, and promoting sustainable practices. By collaborating with schools and engaging a multidisciplinary experts and the young people themselves, we seek to co-create an impactful educational intervention. Starting with a comprehensive survey of school counsellors to map the current state of climate awareness and anxiety, and to understand their expectations for our AI solution, this project is poised for global scalability, addressing the pressing mental health challenges associated with climate change, particularly in vulnerable and resource-constrained regions.