Abstract

This thesis examines the potential for environmental animated media to be used as an informal educational tool for children. Through an examination of key animated works and their cultural contexts, I analyze the shifting ideologies within children's environmental media and investigate how animated films contribute to shaping children's perceptions of environmental issues and their agency in addressing them. Through studying the animation, production history and didactic storytelling techniques of Captain Planet and the Planeteers (1991), Ferngully: The Last Rainforest (1992), WALL-E (2008) and The Lorax (2012), I explore how animated media has historically failed to create meaningful environmental discourse. In analyzing the spatial and non-didactic storytelling of the 2019 film, Weathering With You (2019), I argue that the film's non-didactic and vernacular (familiar, of the people) storytelling provides space for the exploration of alternative environmental education, through map-based and site-specific learning.