OUR AGENDA
-Build Connections - get acquainted
-Share Experience
-Define Common Goals
-Looking Across Our Year
GROUP AGREEMENTS
-Speak your truth, using your finest and kindest words.
-Listen for understanding, and if you wonder, ask.
-Check your intentions and avoid assigning/assuming intentions in others.
-Stay present. Save communication outside this room for breaks
-Have fun!
SHARING OUR INSPIRATION
-Your Name
-Your Organization
-Your Role There
-As we enter spring, think back over the winter we are emerging from.
-What is one moment that comes to mind that really inspired you in your work?
WHAT HAVE BEEN YOUR MOST FRUSTRATING CHALLENGES IN CLIMATE CHANGE EDUCATION?
-Weather is not the same or climate (change)
-Complicated subject & is so BIG (sacrificing other environmental issues)
-Impacts are broad and uneven (equity issues: urban, marginalized communities)
-Expanse of values & entrenched views, politics
-Fear of loss of “quality of life”
-Different Perspectives
-Despair - Practical solutions and everyday actions / How to balance?
-Lack of Time in peoples lives
-Hard to CHANGE status quo
-Takes time & long-view
-Active bias & misinformation
-Vested interest in status quo
-Frustration over best sources of information - how do you find these?
-People don’t like to change
-Technology will fix it we just have to wait….Someone else will fix it.
-Materialism/Consumption
-Individualist view of life vs global!
-Lack of federal leadership to act on and address climate
-Attack on science
-Difficulty in communicating the urgency & feedbacks/uncertainty.
-Constraints of Formal Schooling ( Time, $, Curriculum, Teacher, Engagement & Turnover)
-Teacher ability/desire to engage ( and staff turnover)
-Federal Funding ( & the politics of climate)
-Dismantling of Govt services, programs, agencies, etc.
-Afraid to talk about climate change - politicization (Decline? Of civil discourse)
-Collaboration between NGO’s/Nonprofits
WHAT QUESTIONS DO YOU HAVE THAT COULD INFORM YOUR WORK IN CLIMATE CHANGE EDUCATION?
-How do you help students connect their weather data to climate change?
-Where do teachers see connections to do this? Where do they see tensions?
-How to connect their own behavior to impacts?
-What do they, teachers, already know about CC?
-How best to deal with climate change denial and passion?
-What are most up to date best practices & science? How do we capture?
-How to help students prioritize climate in face of busy schedules?
-What is the culture of community your going to work with?
-Linking resilience & sustainability? ! Need Defining
-Where are the partners I could work with? Who is doing what?
-How do we keep inquiry student - led? Make space for their perspective?
-How do we support self-efficacy in students? Whole school change?
-How can we work to keep audiences positive?
-How can we support different audiences?
-How to incorporate C.C. into programs with general public we are already doing in hands on / engaging ways? (Nature walks, lake trips)
-How to respond to authentic youth needs? (adults in the way?)
-How to capture economic / business side of C.C. education?
-How to connect with school to business?
Capturing “value” in our conversations (economic)
-How to translate detailed science to hands-on, tangible activities that learners can experience?
-How to NOT oversimplify the science
-How to connect to the “middle”
-Need for exemplary / case studies to be shared
IN YOUR PRACTICE, WHAT HAVE BEEN BRIGHT SPOTS AND MOST PROMISING PRACTICES?
-Movement from content learning to skills based, student driven learning - project based!
-Making CC interdisciplinary - integration through all subjects
-Peer Conversation & Consensus
-Alumni Facilitation & Mentorship
-Focus on Solutions, Agency * Youth-focused and led climate summits/ Workshops/ Conferences/ Youth Empowerment - this generation is holding adults accountable & doing an amazing job.
-Local to regional changes & impacts
-Taking care of teachers who teach *climate, mental health**
-Communicators & taking different tacks
-Role Playing
-NGSS - Focus on Climate Change
-Real world observations & experiences - not just in the classroom (i.e. presenting @ town meetings)
-Cross pollination among organizations, collaboration on a common goal
-Relationships *consistent messages from state agencies
-Orgs are walking the talk - building “Living Buildings”
Systems thinking of built environment
Construction is the education not just the place where education happens
-Saving $ - $ goes to student actions/solutions!
-Young Leaders
- Civic Engagement - with youth also, youth summit
- Local Govt leadership
-Increased Organizational Accountability ( Data)
-Ecosystem Services - helping people connect to Climate Change via a different avenue i.e. the love birds - impact on birds
WHAT EMERGING TRENDS IN CLIMATE CHANGE EDUCATION HAVE YOU OBSERVED?
-Empowering & Supporting Minorities populations in science
-Solutions oriented focus - Action projects
-Citizen science & apps - strengthening grass-roots from urgency
-Observation as a tool - over time
-Data analysis - Stem, Overtime, Trends
-Data science (efficiency, detection & attribution, optimization) automation
-Local Action Focus - in your own backyard
-Systems thinking - lens
-Climate education happening in schools
-Language shift to resiliancy
-Not just an environmental science issue - more holistic
-Connections with food systems - social sciences, equity justice
-Adaptation assessment - not just mitigation with youth! PBE
-Corporations as social change agents & incentivizing in places for climate action, sustainability.
-Shift to Herbal/Local Medicine - Health - People - Place
-State Vs Federal Support for CC Education
-CC Education to Transferable skills
-Forging deeper connections with non-profits/corp/higher ed K-12 informal ed.
HOW COULD THIS COLLABORATIVE/COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE HELP YOU TO DO YOUR WORK BETTER?
-State Policy & Funding for Climate Change Education:
Brainstorm pros and cons
Contemplate regional implementation, VT, NH, ME, NY
****** Share & co-solve problems/solutions to create bank of case studies in climate change education, (or share solutions) & resources
-Emerging themes, eg: resilience, social justice. Explore these and flesh out implications - share thinking about how to keep up
-Refer graduate students to good programs
-Providing conservation psychology style support to one another
-Consider how to benefit others not in the room, who need this support too
-Assist one another in how to approach folks not yet on board with why this matters
******* Identify ways to collaborate and build collective impact
HOW MIGHT WE ADD VALUE TO YOUR WORK?
-Create a climate change education “Report Card”
-Be a shared voice for the region with other education networks
****** Create a resource that others could add data to and/or consider how to share scientific data, like GLOBE
WALK ‘N TALK
-PD for ourselves - presentations, discussion. How to vet?
How to prioritize?
Guidelines for excellence NAAEE
NGSS
-Combined/Collective outreach to schools
-Higher thinking behind our outcomes
-Broaden outreach to decision makers