In Teaching Climate Change: Science, Stories, Justice (2023), climate educator, physicist, and speculative fiction writer, Vandana Singh offers a framework for effective climate change pedagogy that highlights four key fundamental challenges of the climate crisis: “its transdiciplinarity, its spanning of large scales of time and space, its rich complexity, and its roots in injustice and power” (25).

This reading group aims to bring together an interdisciplinary group of educators to consider how Singh’s framework might inform the way we teach about the climate crisis. As Singh points out, “our siloed system of education does not easily allow space for a truly inter/transdisciplinary exploration of climate change” – our hope is that this reading group can create one such space for transformative exploration, collaboration, and co-creation (21).

Based on feedback from our ACS summer read of this book, we are intentionally crafting this as a slow read – tackling only 1-2 chapters per week – so that we have the time and space to think deeply and intentionally about the ideas presented in the book. We also plan to integrate into our weekly meetings opportunities for us to apply these ideas to our own teaching praxis. We hope participants will leave our discussions with new tools and strategies for helping ourselves, our colleagues, and our students grapple with the complex and daunting reality of the climate crisis.

This Faculty Hub Slow Read will be co-facilitated by Kylie Korsnack (Faculty Hub) and Mary Finley Brook (Associate Professor of Geography & the Environment) and will take place each Thursday (beginning 9/19) from 3:30-4:30pm in the Faculty Hub.

Our slow read will culminate with a final meeting on Nov. 14 when we'll be joined by Vandana Singh (Professor Physics and Environment, Society & Sustainability at Framingham State University) for a virtual Q&A.

Fall 2024 Meeting Dates:

Thursday, September 19 – Ch 1, "Introduction: The Climate as Teacher"
Thursday, September 26 – Ch 2, "What is an Effective Pedagogy of Climate Change"
Thursday, October 3 – Ch 3, "Science, But Not Just Science"
Thursday, October 10 – Ch 4, "Science and More than Science"
Thursday, October 17 – Ch 5, "The Power of Stories"
Thursday, October 24 – Ch 6, "Applying the Framework to the Cryosphere"
Thursday, October 31 – Ch 7, "Critical and Ethical Thinking about Climate Solutions"
Thursday, November 7 – Ch 8-9, "Insights from Other Educators"
Thursday, November 14 – Ch 10, "Endings and Beginnings" & virtual Q & A with the author: Vandana Singh

Please register here if you plan to join us for one or all of the sessions. Reach out to Kylie Korsnack (kkorsnac@richmond.edu) with questions. All registered participants will receive a free copy of the book."

*Note the print on some of the diagrams in the hard-copy version of the book is quite small. If you would prefer an electronic copy, please let us know in the registration form.

Faculty Hub Slow Read: Teaching Climate Change by Vandana Singh