In 2023, a visit to a local state secondary school to discuss our project, The Museum of Climate Hope, led to an unexpected discussion. A few weeks earlier, an eminent climate scientist had presented a harrowing tale of climate apocalypse to the school’s sixth form. But the students told us the scientist’s presentation, intended as a wake-up call to apathetic teenagers, had backfired.

After that “doom and gloom” message, a teacher at the school told us some students who were already concerned about climate change were showing signs of eco-distress. This term has been coined by environmental psychologists to capture the negative emotional responses – worry, anxiety, despair – to environmental change.

In contrast, teachers observed that other students who were less engaged with the issue seemed to be coping by further distancing themselves from the issue.

Subsequently, we took a group of these students to the Oxford Botanic Garden and and the university’s History of Science Museum to help us identify objects to include in our own museum’s trail.

The Museum of Climate Hope was designed to foster constructive engagement with the climate crisis. It can be experienced in person – as a trail of objects spread through the University of Oxford’s gardens, libraries and museums – or digitally through our interactive multimedia platform.

For most students in England, opportunities to learn about climate change are rare. The

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