The purpose of this study is to critically examine how a kindergarten literacy curriculum’s weather-themed texts construct knowledge, shape ideologies and frame children’s understandings of weather and climate in ways that foster critical thinking and support climate justice orientations.
The authors conducted a critical discourse analysis of a two-week structured literacy kindergarten unit on weather to examine how weather and its effects on humans, other living beings and the environment are depicted.
The analysis identified three recurring themes: weather is natural, manageable through safety and playful. Together, these portrayals frame weather as neutral and benign, minimizing its complexity to preserve children’s emotional safety. In doing so, the texts miss the potential of a multi-genre approach, presenting weather as stripped of scientific, climatic and socio-political dimensions. These portrayals reflect broader cultural beliefs about childhood, resilience and what children can understand. We instead argue for leveraging the potential of multi-genre children’s literature that engages directly with the sociopolitical dimensions of weather and climate, foregrounding scientific complexity, human influence and the uneven impacts experienced across communities. Such texts can help move beyond simplified narratives of preparedness or awe to foster critical awareness of environmental justice, systemic vulnerability and collective responsibility.
This paper highlights how existing standards, such as early childhood weather standards and the use of diverse genre text sets, can be leveraged to foster critical thinking, cultivate climate justice perspectives and the restorying of socioecological futures.
