*Interdisciplinary Teaching about Climate Change* *Workshops and Faculty Development Opportunities*
Effective teaching that enables students to think critically about climate change causes, consequences, and solutions requires that teachers be able to make extensive and deep connections across disciplinary knowledge areas that span the sciences, social sciences and humanities. While many college faculty members have competency for teaching about aspects of climate change that are closely related to their area of disciplinary expertise, fewer are comfortable teaching the broader connections that are necessary for their students to attain a holistic understanding. Dickinson College, with support of a grant from NASA’s Global Climate Change Education program, is offering two faculty development opportunities to enhance competencies for interdisciplinary teaching about climate change. The opportunities are described below. Applications are invited from faculty of any higher education institution. The *Changing Planet Faculty Study Group* is a year-long learning community for building competencies for teaching about climate change across disciplinary boundaries at 4- and 2-year liberal arts colleges. Participants will attend a four-day workshop June 28 – July 1, 2011 on the campus of Dickinson College in Carlisle PA, collaborate with each other to promote climate change education during the 2011-2012 academic year, reconvene for a one-day meeting in spring 2012, and continue to network and share teaching resources as part of the learning community in subsequent years. The workshop will emphasize participatory sessions for sharing expertise, experiences, lesson plans, exercises and ideas for teaching about climate change. Participants will have time to work individually and collaboratively on courses or course modules that they will teach at their home campuses. The workshop will include sessions led by subject area experts that address climate change causes, consequences, ethical dimensions, adaptation, mitigation, and policy. The study group and workshop will be led by Neil Leary, director of the Center for Sustainability Education at Dickinson College and a participant in the science assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) since 1992, Jeff Niemitz, Professor of Earth Sciences, Ashton Nichols, Chair of Sustainability Studies and Professor of English, and Kjell Enge, Professor of Anthropology. The *Climate Modeling and Data Tools Workshop*, to be held August 8 – 11, 2011 on the Dickinson campus, offers 4 days of training in the use of a global climate model and tools to integrate and visualize climatic, environmental, and socioeconomic data for teaching about climate change. The climate modeling part of the workshop will guide participants in the use EdGCM, a software package that integrates a NASA research quality computer climate model with an easy to use interface for running climate model experiments and hypothesis testing. The data tools portion of the workshop will develop capacity for using spatial analysis tools and build familiarity with selected NASA and other datasets for teaching about climate change and human-environment interactions. EdGCM developers Dr. Mark Chandler and Dr. Linda Sohl of Columbia University and NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and Mr. Alex de Sherbinin of the Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) of Columbia University, will lead the workshop. *To apply*: Participation in both programs is open to faculty in any discipline from any college or university. There is no fee to participate. To learn more and apply, visit http://www.dickinson.edu/academics/distinctive-opportunities/sustainability-education/content/Climate-Education/ . *Applications are due by March 25, 2011*. Inquiries about the program should be sent to Neil Leary at [email protected]. Sarah Brylinsky Sustainability Education Coordinator T <http://www.dickinson.edu/departments/cese>he Center for Sustainability Education <http://www.dickinson.edu/departments/cese> Dickinson College Carlisle, PA 17013 Tel: 717.245.1117 [email protected] --------- "Ecology is permanent economy." - Sunderlal Bahuguna, Gandhian activist and philosopher
