G8 – Grouping Emotions Using Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions

In Moral Education, Grade 8 students are learning about emotions.

In 1980, American psychologist Robert Plutchik introduced a model that organizes human emotions into a structured framework. This model helps us explore questions such as, “What happens when an emotion becomes more intense?” and “How might our current emotions change over time?”

In one activity, students scanned QR codes attached to different emotions and answered questions related to each one. By reflecting on their own feelings and sharing their responses with classmates, students discovered that people can experience and interpret the same emotions in different ways.

Students then went beyond Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions by expressing emotions that are not represented on the wheel in their own words. They added these emotions to an “Emotion Sphere” and used colors to represent the combination of emotions that might make up each feeling.

Through exploring a wide range of emotions and reflecting on how they and others experience feelings, students are encouraged to consider the role emotions play in human life. We hope they will learn to value and care for their own emotions as an important part of themselves throughout their lives.