Education in a Changing Climate Workshop
August 1 - 4, 2010

Climate change is not just for scientists to deal with. It’s a challenge for us all, and we need everybody’s skills and perspectives to confront it—now. But the scope and complexity of the issue can seem intimidating and frustrating, like trying to grasp hot air. How can we understand global and long-term problems when we live and work in the here and now? Do we need to be experts before we even mention climate change in public or add it to our teaching?

Join us at Unity College for a 4-day workshop that will give you powerful, practical ways to move past anxiety and educate yourself, your students, and the public.

We’ll offer a climate change primer on basic climate science, likely effects on ecosystems and people, some ethical, literary, and artistic responses, and a sampling of potential solutions that range from political to personal, technological to philosophical. In each case, we’ll show you where to find the best current information and teaching resources.

Through hands-on activities, we’ll explore how to combine place-based teaching with this global problem. We’ll explore outdoors with a Unity College naturalist, write, make art, and consider how to deal with the perspective-bending nature of climate change. In short, we’ll exercise our brains and imaginations in the service of practice.

Education in a Changing Climate is an annual event jointly sponsored by the Orion Magazine and Unity College. Orion is a bimonthly, advertising-free magazine that stakes out the territory of ecology, the arts, action, education, and social justice. Unity College is a learning environment where sustainability and environmental awareness are central to the school’s mission and vision and is intrinsic to all aspects of college life—ranging from the curricular focus on the environmental liberal arts, to the campus-wide emphasis on energy efficiency and local foods.