Tips for Climate Change Storytelling in Museums

Climate change is complex, emotionally charged, and often overwhelming. Museums, however, have the power to translate this global issue into stories people can feel, understand, and act upon.

Recent presentations at the Green Museums Summit from NASA, the Royal Ontario Museum and Concordia Art Space—offer a fresh set of insights into how museums can communicate climate issues with clarity, empathy and imagination.

Start With People, Not With “Climate Change”

At the Royal Ontario Museum, Soren Brothers observes that the phrase “climate change” alone can close doors rather than open them. For some visitors, the topic feels too political; for others, it triggers anxiety or fatigue. Beginning with climate science or warnings may unintentionally alienate the very people museums hope to engage.

Instead, Brothers recommends grounding the conversation in universal human values: the desire for safe, beautiful neighbourhoods, the appeal of clean air, or the excitement of restored natural spaces. These themes offer a gentler, more welcoming entry point. From there, climate issues can be woven in naturally rather than forcefully.

This approach reframes climate change as a conversation about the kind of world we want to live in—one that people from all backgrounds can participate in.

Use Art to Make Climate Emotional and Personal

At Concordia Art Space, curator Petra Boonstra demonstrates how artistic collaboration can ignite climate engagement. Her exhibition, created with children aged 10 to 12, explored forests, waste and sustainability through the young curators’ eyes. The project didn’t simply illustrate the UN Sustainable Development Goals; it expressed the children’s interpretations, questions and hopes.

A mural inspired by the children’s drawings created an imagined forest filled with sound. A second gallery—initially dubbed “plastic hell” by the kids—was reimagined as a place to “turn it around,” focusing on creative reuse instead of despair. The process made space for imagination, curiosity and joy, and visitors responded by forming personal connections to the themes.

Art, in this context, becomes more than a medium. It functions as a catalyst for empathy and reflection.

Turn Data Into Story, Not Static Information

NASA’s Earth Information Center shows how scientific data can be transformed into vivid, intuitive experiences. Recognising that raw information can be overwhelming, the team built installations that invite wonder rather than cognitive overload.

A 20-foot light sculpture visualises the real-time flow of satellite data. An immersive room blends live environmental data with astronaut narration, giving visitors a sense of the Earth’s fragility and dynamism. The vast Hyperwall display combines climate datasets with human stories, ensuring visitors understand not just what the data shows, but who is affected.

Rather than pushing visitors into difficult climate science, NASA “sneaks up on learning,” drawing them in through beauty, interactivity and narrative.

Design Experiences for Different Ways of Learning

Audiences don’t all learn in the same way. NASA embraces the Smithsonian’s IPOP model—Ideas, People, Objects, and Physical experiences—to meet visitors where they are. Some connect through big ideas; others through personal stories, striking artefacts or immersive environments.

By ensuring each of these modes is represented, climate storytelling becomes far more inclusive and effective. Visitors can follow a path that feels natural to them, and once engaged, they become more open to understanding the bigger picture.

Thoughtful design can turn climate interpretation from a lecture into a lived experience.

Build Optimism by Showing Progress

Many visitors feel paralysed by climate anxiety. Museums can counter this by highlighting real examples of progress—stories that demonstrate positive change happening right now.

Soren Brothers points to Toronto’s Don River transformation as a prime example. Once heavily polluted, it is now the site of one of the world’s largest urban climate adaptation projects. New wetlands are emerging; old ecosystems are returning; and future families will be able to kayak through once-industrial waterways. These stories don’t deny the seriousness of climate change—they show that action can work, and communities can thrive as a result.

Optimism grounded in real change is far more motivating than either alarm or resignation.

Use Collections to Reveal Hidden Climate Connections

Museums hold climate stories within their collections, even when those objects weren’t collected for that purpose. At the Royal Ontario Museum, climate tours include everything from copper mining artefacts to 18th-century patch boxes and sediment cores from Crawford Lake.

These objects illuminate how human health, environmental change, colonial history and planetary systems are all interconnected. They provide approachable, tangible entry points into broader climate narratives, often without using the word “climate” at all.

By reinterpreting collections through a climate lens, museums can bring new relevance to familiar objects.

Empower Visitors—Especially Young People—To Act

One of the most powerful aspects of the Concordia project was the sense of agency it fostered. Children weren’t passive participants—they shaped the exhibition itself. Visitors, too, were invited to make new objects from waste plastic and to contribute wishes for a better world.

This emphasis on agency transforms climate storytelling from a message about crisis into an invitation to participate in change. The experience becomes hopeful, hands-on and energising.

People leave not just informed, but inspired.

Museums as Connective Tissue in the Climate Story

The examples shared at MuseumNext reveal a shift in climate communication—from warning to wondering, from anxiety to action, from data to connection. Museums have the capacity to help people see the planet differently, not by lecturing, but by creating experiences that feel human, hopeful and grounded in real-world change.

Whether the story begins with art created by children, satellite imagery viewed from space or an object that’s been in the collection for centuries, the goal is the same: to help visitors understand that climate change is not just an issue, but part of the story of how we live, what we value and the future we choose to build together.