How to #MakeClimateAClass

#MakeClimateAClass: The Basics

We request all climate-concerned faculty on campus– from artists to philosophers to scientists– to spend 30 minutes on climate in their classes. These are not climate experts—just climate concerned teachers. 

Climate change touches every field—from artists to business professors, philosophers to scientists. Our courses can inspire students to see how they can be leaders in the critical work ahead to stabilize the climate. Examples:

•  If you are a literature professor, talk about the genre of climate fiction, or a specific work of climate fiction. Then engage your students in discussion.

• If you are in a field like engineering, chemistry, physics, math or ecology, assign your students a problem or problem set related to climate change or climate solutions.

• If you are in food systems, discuss the impacts of climate change on agriculture and the food supply.

• If you are in the social sciences, discuss human dimensions of climate change and climate justice.

The possibilities are endless.

Students will appreciate the chance to learn how your field relates to an issue that is a major concern for many of them, and to see a pathway to solving climate that goes beyond their lifestyle choices and political action.

Here’s how. For the first 15 minutes, faculty discuss how people in each of their fields are helping solve climate change: again– economists, chemists, writers, sociologists, mathematicians, health scientists, everyone. 

For the second half, zoom in an alum who is actually doing this work. Or if you can’t find an alum, then a professional or a colleague who is a climate expert. 

Leave time for discussion with your students.

Done!

This is an easy way for faculty to focus on climate from a career perspective, helping young people who are interested in psychology see how they could be a climate psychologist; how a musician could be a climate musician; or how a business student could work on business climate solutions. 

If twenty faculty do this, #MakeClimateAClass, then 400 students will be engaged in your teach-in!  

Students can take action here, by emailing all their spring semester teachers asking them to participate and talk about what climate careers in their fields look like.

A twist on #MakeClimateAClass we call #Co-TeachForClimate. To do this, find four climate-concerned faculty members. For example, an artist, an anthropologist, a chemist and a history teacher. What do these four disciplines have in common? Artists, historians, chemists and anthropologists all study climate change, and all contribute to just solutions.

Step 2: Have them each reschedule one class the first week of April, so they can all meet together, either on zoom or in person. Automatically, you have a class of 100+ students, and four teachers to run the class. This is a fun way for students and teachers to learn together.

Step 3: What do the four teachers do during this hour? Same as #MakeClimateAClass, but now, students hear about climate solutions and climate careers from four different teachers, and four different alums.

You can have four or six or ten or twenty of these #Co-TeachForClimate in-class teach-ins and that way, engage hundreds or even thousands of students to talk about climate change, justice and solutions. 

Making the Ask

Send an email to your faculty colleges, speak out in a faculty meeting, or talk to them personally, inviting them to #MakeClimateAClass

Most of your faculty colleagues are concerned about climate change but haven’t been asked to incorporate it into their teaching. It is important to let them know that they can help prepare their students to have careers as climate justice problem-solvers regardless of their field.

Use our Letter inviting faculty to #MakeClimateAClass to reach out.

Here’s a link to Indiana University’s environment program’s archived faculty newsletter from January 2023 (scroll down to “Opportunities and Resources”): https://environment.indiana.edu/newsletter-archive/jan-23-faculty.html

Indiana University added #MakeClimateAClass to their calendar as well, and shared it across multiple departments. https://events.iu.edu/environment/event/827218-makeclimateaclass

Register your Teach-In: 

Even if you do not have details settled please register your #MakeClimateAClass event as soon as possible so we can help identify where events are being held. 

Register Here

This list of climate topics in EVERY discipline provided by Laura Hartman <hartman@roanoke.edu> of Roanoke College

Accounting: Discuss the Climate Accounting Project as a response to climate change. Is it effective? Why or why not?

Anthropology: Study a culture that is threatened by rising sea levels or melting ice. How can the study of culture contribute to our response to climate change?

Archaeology: Rising seas threaten certain archaeological sites; how can archaeologists fight climate change? When has climate been different in the past and how have people responded to it?

Art: Investigate artists who have responded to climate change in their art. Is art an effective social commentary for this issue? Can you design climate-conscious art?

Art History: What do you think of the climate protesters who sloshed soup on a Van Gogh painting recently? Some protest the funding of museums by oil companies; should arts organizations divest from benefactors who are warming the globe?

Biochemistry: How does eating red algae keep cows from belching methane? Could we engineer enzymes that could capture atmospheric carbon for use in building materials?

Biology: how do biological systems (ecosystems, human bodies) respond to climate effects like heat or drought? How can biological systems sequester carbon and what practices optimize this?

Business: what are businesses doing to address the climate crisis? Which actions seem most effective and why? How can we tell what is "greenwashing" or what is a genuine commitment to the common good?

Chemistry: how does a greater concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere affect the chemistry of the ocean (and, in turn, affect the creatures living there)? How does heat in the atmosphere affect its ability to hold water?

Computer science: How do computer scientists model climate outcomes and what are they doing to improve their predictions? What is the climate impact of all those data centers (or bitcoin??) and how is the field working to make it better?

Creative writing: Climate literature, stories, poetry - how effective are these at raising awareness? Can you write your own climate literature? (Psst my favorite climate poet is Craig Santos Perez)

Criminal justice: What do you make of the young people suing the US government for its inaction on climate change (google Our Children's Trust for more info)? We know hotter days result in more violent crimes; how should law enforcement address climate effects in vulnerable communities?

Economics: How is the fossil fuel industry reinventing itself in response to the climate crisis? What pricing mechanisms would work to wean our society off of fossil fuels?

Education: What do students need to know about the climate crisis? What is an age-appropriate way to talk about impending cataclysm? How can environmental education foster a new generation of climate leaders? How can insights from education inform the climate movement's efforts to raise awareness throughout society?

Engineering: What alternatives to fossil fuel have the most promise and why? Which buildings on campus are the most energy efficient and how can the others be improved?

English (literature): Read some cli-fi (climate fiction) or solarpunk (imagining greener futures) and discuss the effects of this genre of literature. (My favorite is Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver.)

Gender and Women's Studies: why are women more vulnerable to climate effects than men? Why are polluting practices and industries associated with masculinity? (think Rolling Coal trucks, eating meat... these are typically masculine pursuits.) Would smashing the patriarchy save the planet??

Health and Exercise Science: What are the effects of extreme heat and other weather events on the human body? How can more active transportation (walking, biking) help solve the climate crisis and what can be done to promote this?

History: When has climate been different in the past and how have people responded to it? Do you agree that we are now in a new era, the Anthropocene, and that doing history as usual is no longer fitting? (See Chakrabarty, The Climate of History: Four Theses 2009)

Human Resources: What policies and practices can respond to the climate crisis (e.g. telework)? What is the future of work on a warming planet?

International Relations: What do you make of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change? How effective is the Paris Agreement (2015)? Should richer countries have to pay for climate adaptation in poorer countries?

Math: How do scientists use math to analyze the climate or predict climate effects? How do you respond to McKibben's article "Global Warming's Terrifying New Math" (2012)?

Marketing: How have fossil fuel companies sown doubt about climate change through clever public relations strategies? How can marketers use their powers for good, to support action on climate?

Modern Languages: What is going on with the climate in a country where they speak this language? Is there poetry or music responding to climate, in this language, which we can analyze?

Music: Listen to and analyze recent works dealing with climate change (recommended: Ludovico Einaudi's 'Elegy for the Arctic'; pieces linked from the Forbes article "What does Climate Change Sound Like As Music?")

Peace and Justice Studies: Examine the modern-day nonviolent climate movement and compare with other social movements. (Recommended: Extinction Rebellion, Fridays for Future.)

Philosophy: Is it the place of human beings to engineer the climate in response to climate change? What is our human role in this earth system?

Physics: Which greenhouse gases trap the most heat and why? What is the principle behind solar radiation management and do you think it would work? Compare and contrast different types of renewable energy.

Political Science: What do you make of the recent Inflation Reduction Act as a response to climate change? What are other countries doing in response and how could we do better?

Public Health Studies: What are the health effects of climate change and how are those effects distributed throughout populations? What steps are being taken to address the urban heat island effect (for example)?

Psychology: What are the mental health effects of climate change (see recent APA report)? What is the role of psychologists in addressing this crisis?

Religious Studies: Practically every religion has an official statement about climate change. Read some and compare/contrast. If all religions basically agree that we should care for the earth, why are we failing at this task? To what degree are other "religions" (such as devotion to market capitalism) undermining religious efforts to respond well to the climate crisis?

Sociology: Scientists have known for decades what should be done in response to the climate crisis, and haven't been quiet about it. And yet, the crisis gets worse by the year. What factors in society are keeping us from doing the right thing?

Sport Management: How are the Olympics (winter and summer) affected by climate change? How can sports be managed in ways that lower the carbon footprint of vast stadiums and jet-setting athletes?

Statistics: Analyze climate data (the international monetary fund's climate change dashboard is a good place to start).

Theatre: Read/perform a play about climate change (try “The Trials” by Dawn King); what is the role of theatrical performance in opening conversations about difficult topics? How can a

medium like theatre bring a "personal" element to something so vast and global?