Workshop Schedule

This workshop will help you cultivate bold new approaches to education. The urgency of environmental issues demands creativity and fluid dialogue across disciplines. This workshop will model powerful opportunities to integrate art and science as we learn to navigate education in a changing climate. The schedule below is a plan…it may change as the faculty become more aware of the needs, challenges and interests of participants.

Tentative Schedule:
For each of the following sessions, we’ll offer basic information (usually including videos, mostly short ones, occasionally a longer film); do a hands-on activity directly connected to the topic; talk about additional resources; engage in at least one other mode of learning such as writing, art, physical movement; and talk about possible ways of teaching the material to others. We’ll incorporate questions about ethics, communication, and the arts into each part of the week rather than isolating them, but we will end with them.

August 1, Sunday
Morning:
Who are we all?  What will we be doing this week?
How does the climate system work, and why is the global climate changing?  How do greenhouse gases work in the atmosphere?
What climate changes can we expect to see in this century (and beyond), and what might these global changes mean in specific places?

Mid-day:
What’s the difference between climate and weather?
Field trip to think about this question on campus.

Afternoon:
How has the climate changed in the past, and what can we learn from this history?
How do scientists learn or figure out such things?  What do they understand best, and where are the biggest remaining uncertainties?
What are the barriers to communication about these topics, and how might we get past them to best teach non-specialists? 
What have the arts and humanities already found to contribute to our understanding of these topics?  What more might they do?

Evening:
Talk and slide show by Chip Blake, editor of Orion Magazine, about the importance of stories and images in communicating with the public about environmental issues, including climate change.

August 2, Monday
Morning:
What biological and ecological changes have already begun to appear, and why?
What further changes can we expect to see, given these climate shifts, and why?
How might these changes matter for both large- and small-scale agriculture and gardening?
What ethical issues do these changes raise? 
What are the barriers to communication about these topics, and how might we get past them to best teach non-specialists?
What have the arts and humanities already found to contribute to our understanding of these topics?  What more might they do?

Mid-day:
Field trip to bog on campus, led by Unity College biologist.

Afternoon:
How do the expected global ecological changes correlate with what we saw in today’s field trip? How can we think about global changes in local terms in other places? 
What different ways might we build on similar field experiences elsewhere?
How, in general, can we tackle the practical and ethical challenges of thinking locally about a global problem and thinking globally when we tend to see only what’s local?  How might the arts help us here?

Evening:
Talk by Cindy Thomashow about her museum project.

August 3, Tuesday
Morning:
Watch “Climate Refugees” documentary film.
How will climate change affect human individuals and groups around the world?
What ethical and communication issues arise in this context?  What can the arts do to help us deal with these issues?

Mid-day:
Small group discussions outdoors about what we might be able to do to lessen human suffering from climate change.

Afternoon:
What are the main international policy agreements?
What are the main difficulties and complications in moving forward on strong climate treaties?
What is the state of these debates right now, and what’s likely next?
What has been done to confront climate change through governmental and policy action on the national level (in the U.S. and elsewhere) and on more local levels?

Evening:
Watch The Age of Stupid documentary.

August 4, Wednesday
Morning:
What solutions are available to us from energy efficiency and clean energy technology, and how much of which changes will it take to make a difference? 
What “geo-engineering” solutions have been suggested, and what hopes and issues do they raise?
What role does business have to play in tackling the problem?  What have businesses already begun to do, and what more might they do?

Mid-day:
What is the relationship between large-scale and small-scale changes and actions?
How important is it for us to rethink our daily lives, and our sense of what it means to “live the good life”?  Again, finally, how can the arts and humanities help us in this task?