Teaching Climate Change and Resilience

Faculty Learning Community

Facilitators:

• Dr. Mark Stemen, Geography & Planning at CSU, Chico

Assistance provided by the educational staff at Strategic Energy Innovations (SEI), including Dr. Elizabeth Bagley (formerly of Project Drawdown), and colleagues Sarah Ray (Cal Poly Humboldt), Daniel Fernandez (CSU, Monterey Bay), and Tracey Osborne (UC, Merced).

Dates and Information:

• Eight Wednesdays beginning February 9 and ending May 4, 2022 (9:00 - 10:30am)

• In addition to consultation meetings (coaching sessions) with small groups of participants, there will be sessions held at the This Way to Sustainability Conference (March 24-25) focused on specific climate justice and resilience issues. The conference sessions will be open to all faculty on campus because the Office of Sustainability will be paying a sponsorship fee for the campus. FLC members and all campus faculty are strongly encouraged to attend.

Description:

This FLC will help participants think about teaching and learning focused on climate change and resilience. The goals for participants in this FLC are to: 

• Learn about and develop or modify course curriculum with a focus on climate change, climate justice, and resilience 
• Gain collegial support for teaching sustainability across the disciplines. 
• Work collaboratively to identify and design pedagogical approaches to teach students about sustainability problems paired with investigating possible solutions together 

Conversations will be driven by the questions that emerge from participants’ particular course contexts.

Outcomes:

• Help faculty integrate climate change and resilience into a current course in a meaningful and just way

• Provide faculty with class materials that are well researched, relevant, and relatable to their discipline, and a specific course

• Provide faculty with the tools and resources to engage the emotions that young people experience when talking about climate change

• Provide a place for faculty to reconnect after almost two years of social distancing

• Create a community of scholars who can continue to support each other after the FLC concludes

• Provide junior faculty with a publication possibility

• Support the work of campus sustainability coordinators

FLC Requirements:

This FLC requires a commitment to be prepared for and actively participate in seven of the eight 90-minute sessions scheduled, with some reading and projects expected between sessions. Participants will also engage in consultation sessions in smaller teams where faculty can present ideas and receive feedback on course design related to their specific content. These small groups will support each other in course design and revision.  

Session Dates and Focus:

The FLC will meet on the following Wednesdays, 9:00-10:30 a.m. 

Meetings are both in-person (Colusa 116) and virtual on Zoom via hyflex technology

Wednesday, Feb 9:  Introductions and Goals of the FLC

Wednesday, Feb 23: Science and Policy of Climate Change

Wednesday, March 9: Class Assignments, Activities & Research

Wednesday, March 23: Global and Civic Engagement

Wednesday, April 6: Climate Justice

Wednesday, April 20: Campus as a Living Lab

Wednesday, May 4: Redesign Presentations

Expected Deliverables:

Participating faculty are expected to redesign significant portions of a course (assignment sequence, assessment, syllabus, course activity, etc.) to integrate climate change and resilience into student learning outcomes. 

Deliverables include: 

1. a completed Model Course Redesign portfolio and a recorded “lightening talk”.

2. An alternative option to those deliverables is to write a paper on the course redesign and submit it for publication in The CSU Journal of Sustainability and Climate Change.

Stipend:

Faculty (T/TT and lecturers) who complete the FLC, including the deliverables listed above, will receive $500 in taxable income. Faculty must attend seven out of eight sessions to receive their stipend. 

Our Spring 2021Effort:

In Spring 2021, the Office of Faculty Development at Chico State offered a Teaching Climate Change and Resilience Series to start planning for this FLC. You can visit this website for the workshops video recordings and for a series of open source resources on climate change and resilience available on our campus.

Questions 

For questions related to this FLC in general, contact Mark Stemen, mstemen@csuchico.edu

For local Humboldt faculty participation questions, contact Katie Koscielak, kmk928@humboldt.edu or Jennifer Ortega, jmm26@humboldt.edu