Climate Friendly Identity Development Course Outline

Design Document

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Tech Tool Deliverable Link:

Course Slides

Target audience – who are the learners? Describe them in detail.

 City community members ages 16+ who have an interest in developing an awareness or action-oriented approach to their climate friendly identity.

This course would be offered through a public library; community college community enrichment program; or city recreational department. It could also be adapted to being enacted in a religious community, social activist/justice alliance group, NPOs with a mission aligned with climate action, senior centers, or any other community-minded organization.

The contextual intention here is a course that adapts the learning objective to the human experience as folks are comfortable living it in the spaces they feel socially secure and affirmed. It seeks to meet learners who are looking to extend their participation and experiences in the world around them in relation to climate action awareness. A broad definition of learner identity is intentional since the course seeks to be flexible and draw in as much of a community as possible. Learners who participate must do so consensually in the sense that they are present out of curiosity and intrinsic desire over guilt and/or obligation.

 The subject of funding or cost for the course is clearly a hang-up and obviously can impact effectively meeting an intentionally defined audience. This course, ideally, would need to be funded by grants, or community buy-in. Tapping on local and/or subject interested or invested donors who support their community and are also mindful about their position in the community, would be crucial. Drawing in these sorts of learners to take the course would be a strategy for executing this. Or developing a course specifically geared toward learners with the resources of donors/funders.

Participation in this program would require learners that were capable of some sort of buy-in. Financial would be an option, but so would volunteering, resource sharing for the benefit of other participants (food, water, space, transportation, etc), connection making, or a community climate commitment of some kind.

Learning objectives – what should the learners know or be able to do as a result of this lesson/intervention? (not what they will do during the lesson, but what will they have learned that they can do in the future)

Using Google Maps and Slides learners will reflect and explore in writing, art, field trips, and conversation on climate-friendly experiences.

Reflections and communication with other learners, and the people and places learners interact with over the course of the class, will surface learner’s own personal identity as climate friendly. Specifically, climate friendly identity will be considered in the realms of place identity, connectedness to nature, environmental self-identity, and social identity.

Reflections will then be used to build mindfulness about the parts of a climate friendly identity that participants find fulfilling, (defined as bringing a sense of curiosity and connectedness), or that meet self-identified core values or community values or another identified value related to climate friendly action or participation by way of habit or planned activity.

 

Detailed Description of lesson/intervention

This course is designed to have an in-class and out-class bi weekly meeting schedule over the course of 6-9 weeks. In-class sessions will be synchronous events. They are intended for team building, grounding, and social reflection exercises. Out-class sessions will be times when participants are encouraged toward self-directed or instructor led field trip experiences.

The pre-created local specific Climate Friendly Journey Google Map will be used by the learners and instructor to pick 4-6 field trips. These field trips will consist of 1-2 climate related events for place and social identity, 1-2 trips for connectedness to nature, and 1-2 trips for awareness raising. Learners will be encouraged to participate based on their preferred social engagement style and what most motivates toward curiosity and fulfillment.

Each experience will have an external reflection expectation. Learners will have the opportunity to practice creating reflections on the shared Journey Map, or on their designated Google slide, or within the messaging/social app that the group agrees to use, or is instructed to use (adaptable based on community values and comfort level with each other and different social tech tools).

The tech methods will be required on the basis of shareability while learners are moving place to place, they are meant to be accessible from a price and material perspective, additionally the tech intended to allow for an inclusive experience. Those who are differently-abled, neurodivergent, feel a lack of belonging or a discomfort in certain spaces, have different class or resource needs are to be the primary guiding considerations for how tech is implemented. All tech resources will need to be reviewed by those who specialize in inclusivity in these different ways to ensure the shareability, accessibility, and adaptability of tools to the various needs of a community participating in the course.

As much about a field trip of any kind can be unpredictable, and there will not be time or cultural acceptability around a community mindfulness or cross-learner care for participants from different backgrounds, need sets, and life experiences, these things will be accommodated for using tech and instructors who are aware and adequately trained on what this scope of adaptability, accessibility, and access mean and require.

What is being assumptive in this is that each participant will have a phone or tablet of some sort equipped to use the tech tools needed. The lack of said tech or tech skills is a barrier that needs to be addressed. In some ways this can be addressed by building into the course tablets that are loanable to participants for in-class and out-class experiences. However, this will need to be done with sustainable funding, paid staff to service the tech, and ideally invested and adequately compensated ‘tech buddies’ for participants who are also trained similarly to the instructor in inclusive needs support, as well as socially adept in tech instruction and guidance. Instructor(s) will also need to be able to use the internet to network around their local area for field trip experiences, and to find and communicate with local environmental organizations.

Basic class timelines

Week 1: Team building, needs assessment, community care expectations, matching learners up with tech and tech support.

Week 2: Identify one climate change question or hesitation that you have or have encountered to bring to an in-class meeting to reflect on what feelings these bring up and how you might address them.

Weeks 3-4 (or 3-7 for 9 week course): Find 1-2 environmental organization from a provided list. Attend a meeting or org hosted event and explore their website or social media page.

• Post a picture of attendance or proof of participation to the shared Google Slide with your name on it. With your picture copy a review, mission statement, or past event/action of the org(s) that speak to what drew you to the organization.

Week 5 (or 8): Share one climate-friendly practice that you engage in and plan to continue doing.

Week 6 (or 9): Identify one way you have integrated your experiences into your life (ex: subscribed to a newsletter, planned another trip to connect with nature, put repeat meetings for the org you visited in your calendar)

Curriculum Materials to Create by Local Leaders and Instructors:

• Annotated list of 20 Orgs across a range of modalities, intents, and audiences (activism, lobby, conservation, social justice, etc.)
• Google Map with attached event list. About 20 suggested locations, networked connection points for participants to choose from (permaculture gardens open to public, nature reserves, museums, water conservation plants, homesteads, solar farms, sustainable living communities, recycling plants, etc.)

Provided Materials by Instructional Designers

• Class Templates and Support Materials for creating a connected and inclusive learner community, how to keep in touch with IDs, and tech guidance.
• Recommended list of communication apps and/or guides for choosing a communication tech tool
• Tutorials on screen capture, Google Docs use and linking, attaching images in Google Slides, using the comment section, discussion engagement agreement, AI policy, safety notice and release agreement templates for travel and field trips

Using these tools over hardcopy materials allows for flexibility of creation, on the go management of information, easy shareability that is not place dependent, and tools that can meet a wide range of interest, comfort, and skill levels as the assignment turn-ins are meant to capture an experience over being the experience.

 

A note on learner population tech comfort:

 Many of the assumptions made in this learning experience are adapted to a population with either basic smartphone skills, or those without access or need for much tech knowledge other than everyday search behaviors and social media use.

 Populations that have members who have higher tech awareness and use must also be considered. Input from learners who use AI regularly and have moved beyond use of it for search engine-esque behaviors (basing this off this author’s own experiences, which are assumed to be fairly ‘regular) into more creative or cutting-edge spaces will be encouraged to suggest or showcase their skills in their reflections, assignments, and asked if they mind giving a review that includes how their skills may have been more incorporated into future iterations of the course. Course may also be split into different versions for those with more access or higher comfort or professional embedment in advanced or money/resource (time, peer support, professional access and training)-gated technologies.

Research Support:

Vesely, S., Masson T., Chokrai, P., Becker, A., Fritsche, I., Christian A. Tiberio, K.L., Carrus, G., Panno, A., Climate change action as a project of identity: Eight meta-analyses. Global Environmental Change, (70). 2021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2021.102322.

Accessed via https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378021001011)