BlackRep4Kids Guide & Toolkit for Storyworld Creators

Black Representation: Authoring STEM Stories for Climate Risk Preparedness (BlackRep4Kids) was a collaborative, NSF-funded project (2023-2024) that aimed to enhance Black representation in children’s climate media, focusing on developing storytelling methods that highlight the experiences and innovations of Black communities in facing climate change. The project culminated in an unconference in October 2024, where 80 experts from fields including climate science, developmental psychology, informal learning, and children's media came together to collaborate on the development of culturally relevant and developmentally appropriate solutions to advance STEM-informed climate awareness, adaptation, mitigation, and resiliency among Black families and young Black children.

This document is a representation of group discussions that occurred during the BlackRep4Kids unconference and do not reflect any one individual or organization’s thoughts. Serving as the unconference’s proceedings, the toolkit synthesizes key ideas and themes that emerged from the group’s deliberations, provocations, and continued collaboration. The toolkit also builds on key points from the project’s pre-conference outputs – most notably, the BlackRep4Kids podcast series and resource library.