Sesame Street Launches New Special to Help Kids Face Extreme Weather

The lovable critters that call Sesame Street home are launching a new initiative designed to make extreme weather less scary for young kids. Here is a look at the programming and what it hopes to achieve.

Sesame Street Tackles Difficulties of Extreme Weather with New Initiative

The Sesame Workshop has started a new Extreme Weather response initiative as research shows that children born in 2020 are 2 to 7 times more likely to experience severe weather events when compared to those born in 1960. The nonprofit group behind Sesame Street hopes that the programming will help children better understand events such as hurricanes, wildfires, and floods. The goal is to help viewers prepare for these emergencies while giving them tools to cope with the aftermath of the disruptive weather events.  

The programming also includes a variety of educational resources to help families deal with extreme weather, such as videos, family guides, activities, and Sesame Care Kits for those impacted by the disasters. According to Rocio Galarza, vice president of U.S. Educational Programs at Sesame Workshop, the group listened to families impacted by natural disasters to determine how they could help.

This is not the first time that Sesame Street has addressed the weather with its young viewers. In 2001, the show aired a series of episodes recounting how Big Bird dealt with a hurricane. This storyline was aired several times after major disasters in the U.S., including Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Superstorm Sandy in 2012.

The latest endeavor encompasses a wider variety of resources for both parents and kids. The goal of the program and accompanying resources is to help children understand these weather emergencies without frightening them. Sesame Workshop also hopes to help children to find healthy ways to manage the big feelings in age-appropriate ways as they both prepare for events and recover from them.

How the Texas Hill Country Flooding Tragedy Prompted This Response

Galarza recently recalled how the deadly flooding event last summer in Texas Hill Country prompted a big response from partners looking for resources to help the impacted families. Galarza noted that, "Our PBS stations and some of the local partners that we have contacted us immediately and asked, what information can we give and what materials can we give?"

Fortunately, the Sesame Workshop had some materials and resources on hand thanks to their previous efforts. But the requests for help served as a reminder that the Sesame Street gang is in a unique position to help ease fears and make it easier for parents to communicate with their children when disaster strikes.

According to Galarza, "These events are happening more often, and they're getting harder to explain to children, particularly when they are casualties, and the casualties are children themselves."

The first episode in the series, "Storm on Sesame Street," premiered on August 3 on PBS Kids and Netflix. It will be available to stream on YouTube on September 25.

The special episode deals with the sensitive subject of severe weather through characters and a setting that kids already identify with. For instance, Elmo and friends are shown preparing for the big storm and learning about ways to calm themselves when the weather becomes scary. The characters then have to confront a neighborhood that experiences damage as the storm passes through. Celebrity guests Post Malone and Michelle Buteau also appear in this program.

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