The Climate Change Education Partnership Alliance (CCEP) conducted a series of four webinars (see below) that complimented the newly released Climate Change Education: Effective Practices for Working with Educators, Scientists, Decision Makers, and the Public guide.
Produced by the CCEP Alliance, this guide provides recommendations for effective education and communication practices when working with different types of audiences. While effective education has been traditionally defined as the acquisition of knowledge, Alliance programs maintain a broader definition of “effective” to include the acquisition and use of climate change knowledge to inform decision-making.
Recordings of all webinars have been posted below. If you have any questions, please email agingras@uri.edu.
Jump to archived webinars:
Working in Informal Environments
Working with Indigenous Communities
Working with Formal K-14 Educators
2017 Webinar Series
Monday, May 1, 3-4pm EDT
Working in Informal Environments
Presenters: John Anderson (NNOCCI, New England Aquarium), Raluca Ellis (CUSP, The Franklin Institute), Deborah Wasserman (MADE CLEAR, COSI)
About 240 million people learn about climate change issues through informal settings, such as television, the internet, the workplace, museums, zoos, and aquariums. Surveys of visitors to U.S. zoos, aquariums, and national parks indicate that there is far more interest and concern about climate change among visitors to informal science institutions than the average U.S. adult. This presents a significant opportunity for learning about climate change in informal environments. Join us for this webinar to hear from three CCEP Alliance projects about effective and tested practices in engaging informal audiences. Raluca Ellis, program director of Climate & Urban Systems Partnership (CUSP), will discuss how multiple organizations, “tabling” under a common message at festivals was successful at breaking down barriers to having positive conversations about climate change. John Anderson, Project Director for the National Network for Ocean and Climate Change Interpretation (NNOCCI) will illustrate how social sciences have helped to shape productive conversations at hundreds of informal science education organizations across the U.S., and Deborah Wasserman, Senior Research Associate for the Lifelong Learning Group at COSI’s Center for Evaluation and Research will share how the MADE CLEAR Informal Climate Change Education (ICCE) community of practice has evolved to meet informal educators’ needs for peer relationships and professional development that would strengthen their confidence and strategies for integrating climate change education into their practice.
Monday, May 15, 7-8pm EDT
Working with Indigenous Communities
Presenters: Corrin Barros (PCEP, PREL), Jessica Brunacini (PoLAR, Columbia University), Malinda Chase (PoLAR, AINE), Sharon Nelson-Barber (PCEP, WestEd), Emerson Odango (PCEP, PREL), Elizabeth Rechebei (PCEP, Commission on Education in Micronesia)
Indigenous environmental knowledge, developed over generations by managing natural resources through place-based solutions, has the potential to influence local and global responses to the changing climate. Western climate science, particularly impact assessments and projections of future change, may also help inform Indigenous community responses to climate change impacts. For the most part, these perspectives have not actively come together to benefit all. Collaborating in discussion and research about climate change offers rich opportunities for mutual learning among Indigenous ways of knowing and living, Western scientific knowledge, and technological advances, thereby benefitting communities’ responses at the frontlines. At the same time, this collaboration further informs formal and informal science education for Indigenous and non-Indigenous learners. In this webinar, we will explore examples from the presenters’ work in which Indigenous and Western environmental knowledge intersect to benefit climate education in and for Indigenous Alaska Native and Pacific island communities.
Thursday, June 1, 2-3pm EDT
Working with Key Influentials
Presenters: Michel Boudrias (CEP, University of San Diego), Nilmini Silva-Send (CEP, University of San Diego)
People in key influential positions across the country are making decisions that determine how their communities address climate change. These Key Influential (KI) community leaders work collectively with other community experts to understand the causes and consequences of climate change in their region and to lessen the impacts.
Climate Education Partners (CEP) has created a climate education approach that KIs find to be relevant and valuable to their informed decision-making. CEP’s approach is regionally tailored and includes (1) identifying what is important to KIs in our region; (2) providing accessible scientific facts about the impacts of climate change on 5 local impact areas; (3) engaging in educational outreach in informal non-classroom settings, such as in tours or business Lunch & Learns; (4) producing short, colorful briefs on KI relevant topics (such as vulnerable populations and economic impacts) and videos on key impact areas (such as health and wildfires); and (5) developing replication resources for use in other regions.
Together with local scientists, educators, and a wide range of community leaders, CEP has created opportunities for KIs to make more informed decisions based on current climate science findings and in a community of other leaders, who also care that the region maintains its beautiful quality of life for generations to come.
Please join us on June 1st to learn more about CEP’s work and hear from the CEP team who will share deeper insights and case studies on best practices to educate KI leader audiences.
Tuesday, June 6, 7-8pm EDT
Working with Formal K-14 Educators
Presenters: Corrin Barros (PCEP, PREL), Patricia Harcourt (MADE CLEAR, UMCES), Emerson Odango (PCEP, PREL), Melissa Rogers (MADE CLEAR, UMCES)
In this webinar, stories and experiences from our work to bring the urgent but unfamiliar and complex topic of climate change to classrooms through teacher professional development and strong partnerships will be shared. We will describe how our approach to climate change education has changed to become more interactive and aligned with three-dimensional learning and place-based educational approaches.
The presenters will discuss different strategies used to bring climate change education into a variety of formal education contexts. Schools in high population urban neighborhoods, rural schools with largely agricultural populations, Pacific island schools with specific climate change concerns, and schools with a special emphasis on technology or vocational training will provide examples for this discussion.
Since climate change is an important topic with a history of political controversy, the presenters will provide some examples of the challenges that teachers face when introducing climate change in the classroom and discuss some helpful approaches for engaging students in productive and positive discussions and learning.
The webinar will wrap up by sharing a few of the presenters’ favorite sources of information and classroom lessons on climate change.