For this episode of TC Talk: A Tech Comm Podcast, Abi and Benton interview Dr. Rollag Yoon, a professor of English Education and curriculum editor for the ⁠Journal of Climate Literacy in Education⁠. We talk about definitions of climate literacy, how to communicate about climate to young people, and why hope needs to be part of the message. Check out ⁠ClimateLit.org⁠, which features tons of teaching resources.



Transcript





ATell us about, I guess, sort of your general background and how you became involved in this topic.SYes, I approach things from story. So that's where I come. I think there was a reason I was an English major. I think, so I both learn through story. I think through story. And then I'm definitely like a feeler. My emotional response carries a lot of where I'm at. Growing up, I definitely was in a family who cared about thinking about and connecting to the world in like a really physical way and in a way that I think I've had to actually learn to name in groups of folks who you know, name themselves as environmentalists. Like I grew up on a farm, and there are certainly things that farming has been problematic in some ways, of course, for environmental factors, and I've thought a lot about that, but it also was a space where I, my whole childhood was connected to the ground, like in the ground. I literally pulled weeds from the bean field so that the beans would grow every July, you know, and was always outside, always planting. So I think I had this, my interest started as an innate sense of connectedness, like truly to the ground, like that's where we lived and and existed.SAnd my sister, to be honest, my older sister was very involved in, I think in high school, she is a little bit more, she was a science major, she was an ecology major for her undergrad, so she had this interest and would talk about it and the concerns around it, and I was like, yep, that makes sense. I've always had, sort of, I think the standard, coming from the 90s, good intention, yes, I care about the environment. Yes, I will recycle. Yes, I try to limit my waste. But then I'm somebody who has always believed in science, so like am aware of sort of the things that we've lived, the changing, the Al Gore era, like our climate is actually changing, our world is actually changing and becoming more concerned about it. And then I think being a teacher and starting, a classroom teacher mostly for 10 years with 7th graders, we're at this really interesting stage where they care about topics, they get deeply passionate about them. They also get nervous about them in different ways of seeing that.SAnd then I think being a mom and recognizing that my kids from an early age are super aware, right? They are aware of how the air feels when there are fires in Canada that affect us here in Minnesota. They are aware of trees that are cut down on our block and what that means. They are aware of, you know, their good and bad of like social media excerpts of like the ocean and all the plastic, right? And so I think that our kids both like my own children and kids that I taught, like, have felt it deeply, that sort of like entering that space.SAnd then as an English teacher, I think that I, again, going back to story, have always thought about writing and producing as a space for students to take action. Like, I think that's the purpose of teaching students to engage with word. I think in working with students, I think keeping me going in the classroom has always been sort of this idea of a speculative imagination. What do text tell us about? But where do they allow space for us to imagine something new and better? Because I don't want to stay in a stuck place. I believe in research and I believe in understanding the truth and the science of the moment. But I also believe that like we have to exist with some hope. I don't say that naively, but what is the catalyst that like is going to allow us to imagine and create something new?SSo then that interest kind of connected me with some of the work of a professor who I knew from being a graduate student at the University of Minnesota, who started the Center for Climate Literacy, that was Marek Oziewicz. He has cared deeply about this topic for a long time and he really just on his own connected to people from around the world and was like I want to, we have to do this. Schools are a place where if we connected teachers, teachers are a conduit to students and that is like the biggest, the biggest space we have for movement in our world because like we can't really sit around and wait for policy in some ways. Like we have to move from down here. That's how we reach people. And so how do we come together and start building resources and spaces and ways of thinking that allow to move that forward. And so he invited me in to start thinking about this work, particularly around our journal, which is just two years old. And so, so just started meeting with this group of people from all over the world who care about this and also work with teachers and teacher educators and literature to, to think about this work. That's kind of, that's how I got started.AWe both read the introductory editorial of the first issue. And I thought it was super inspiring.BYeah.ASo for our listeners here, I'm gonna just read a little excerpt of it.AThe journal is our collective effort to actively confront in and with education the climate breakdown and its drivers. Climate change is the key existential issue of our time. It is already eroding possibilities for human and non-human lives across the globe. If not addressed adequately, it will continue to erode these possibilities at an accelerating pace, leaving today's young people stranded in an unrecognizable wasteland that may become their future. But this is not the future we are willing to accept. At CLE, Climate Literacy in Education, we believe that the story of climate change is yet to be told. It will be told and shaped by today's youth and by all of us who stand up for young people's right to futures in which they can thrive without compromising the Earth's biospheric integrity.AAnd what I love about what I just read is that. It doesn't beat around the bush, right? We are living in a climate emergency. Right.AIt is the existential issue of our time, and like Benton and I talked about in our in our episode about facing the climate emergency, that was the first step is you have to acknowledge the reality and that's where it's easy to get stuck. And then there's this shift to this is not the future we are willing to accept. And there's that making space for hope that I need. Yeah.AAnd so I appreciate that your journal is out there with this honest but hopeful perspective. And it also makes me feel way awesomer about being an educator myself. The way you talked about howSGood.AThis is where we can make a difference is with the young people we’re teaching versus waiting on policy. Yeah. I, I really admire what you're doing. And yeah, I also appreciate how you're talking about it from your perspective as a parent because that's probably the key motivator for me right now, is I brought my kids into this world that's crumbling. Yeah.AAnd I would say our kids are pretty aware. But that's mostly because we talk about it a lot. You and I, and Zoe especially, is great at listening when she's not supposed to. Mm. So,Bespecially when she's not supposed to. Better than when we're talking to her. For sure. Yeah. Of course.ASo even she this year was like, oh, I wish it would snow it’s like Christmas time, Why isn't it snowing right without snow? Means it's too warm. Right.AAnd climate change is getting worse. And I realized, Oh my gosh, I have completely imparted my own existential terror to my 11 year old and so like we personally talking to our own kids, need to pair that with, there are steps we can take. There is another story we can tell, right?SAnd it is part of it. It is scary. We read a book to our kids called the Whatifs, and it talks about like when you have bad what ifs. You might also have good what ifs. What if this goes well today? But so we talk a lot about at our house, like when people, when we have the what ifs and I think that part of me when I talk about parenting is Simon, our oldest, will say he'll sometimes at night say like I just have so many what ifs that are so big. And they include like environmental concerns. And it's not because I think like we talk generally about the choices we make, right. I think we talk about like you know we're not, we don't eat as much meat because of this or we don't. You know, we're gonna reuse this instead of throwing it away because of this. Or like we don't need so many things because of this but. But the existential fear, I think, is also just like felt in if they hear a clip of news, right. Or they do notice these things like it's a collective thing. So.AYeah, I guess it's not better to hide it. It just sucks that they have to carry this burden that they didn't choose, you know. Right. 100%.BI'm sure that every generation has a degree of this, but you know we need to prepare our kids for a world we've never seen. And it's gonna be dramatically different from the world we grew up in. You know when they get to be our age, what is that that world gonna be? What does 2050 look like? You know, how can we get them ready to survive and hopefully even thrive in that landscape?SYeah. Yeah. And to move beyond that like again, I don't mean this to sound naive, but like also to say yes, we have to change right now that's it. And we will have to adapt to the world and like how do we create in a way that allows us, the world to maybe not be the worst possibility, right?SWithout jumping in too fast, I'll tell you for for example so one of the things with the climate Literacy Journal we have this, I don't know if I shared this with, I probably did, Abi, but the so climatelit.org is our database it’s all sorts of books  that address climate and it's games and apps and youth-authored and picture books and novels. And I think about like one of the books that I do read a lot with my students and I'm holding it up, the the Tantrum that saved the world. And it's about this kid who is like, all these animals from around the world, and things are like knocking at her door. And she's like, why are you here? I don't have space. And then, like eventually, like, she's like, fine, move in. And then she starts to listen to. And she's like, wait a minute. Like, why isn't there a place for you? And then she, like, goes to the government officials and is like, come on now we're ruining this, let’s make it better. And she, she continues being told, like, don't worry about it. It'll be fine. You’re just a kid, you don't know. And then she throws this tantrum and she's like, actually, I do know and actually, like, I'm not letting you off the hook on this. But I love a book like this because, it is this sort of like awareness that the things that we're describing are on all of our doorsteps. And it's a young kid saying I'm actually not gonna just sit there and take this. I am gonna pound on the doors until something changes, which again that can feel like as adults, not always the most hopeful, but I think like if these are the stories we're telling our kids on a regular basis, we're not going to put up with these things, it feels like a starting point to me.BIt sounds like a good book.AWe have to get that.SIt’s so good.BMaybe we'll get copies and put one in each of the libraries.AHey.SThat's a good idea, yeah, I vote yes. I think the other thing that I feel sort. I don't know if hope is the right word, but when I think about movement, so I was a Co editor for a special issue titled Water as Conflict and Water as Commons, where we really featured how our teachers with their students, thinking about water in the classroom and not, and we wanted to complicate it, right? Not Just like water, we all need it. The end. And we did this special issue because we were thinking about with our own students, it's an entry point because everybody uses water so much. But then how do we complicate that with our students in a way that allows that space for both, that space for acknowledging like what we're doing with water and how it's problematic, but also we're all in this. It Affects all of us and so therefore what's the move? And so if you haven't heard of We are water protectors. We are water protectors is by Carole Lindstrom. That's the book that tells of Indigenous water protectors on the Dakota pipeline, like telling the story and like using the metaphor of the pipeline is a black snake and Here is how we come together as a community to protect the water. Because we are not individuals, we are a collective and we are doing this together, which I think I just want to always acknowledge like we're continually thinking too about the work that indigenous communities have done environmentally for a long time as part of this special issue and special, and the journal and the Center. And how we can draw on those stores as a space for learning. So that's connected.SBut what I was gonna say from there is we had this special issue and we invited teachers to share their stories of how they take up water in the classroom. And They were so beautiful and so creative. And these like lovely ways that teachers are thinking through with their students about water. Many of them using the book we are water protectors, but also in lots of other ways. And so we had some of the teachers come and speak on a panel at the National Council of Teachers of English in November. And it was an 8:30 AM session, which at a conference on the East Coast is like not the ideal time, but we still had 40 people, I think because people care about this topic. And it was so moving because we had a teacher from Florida and a teacher from Wisconsin, and in some ways telling these really different stories, but in some ways telling stories like you all are saying about what their students know and experience, and how it just has to be part of the curriculum. Somebody asked the teachers on the panel, what would you recommend for people who are in a conservative place where maybe it's, you’re not supposed to talk about climate change? And the teacher from Florida said, I teach in Florida. There's a lot of ideas about what we are and are not supposed to teach about. But my students just went through two hurricanes. They've lost their home. The idea that we can't approach this with our students is just not a thing. It's their lives. And now we, right, the fires in LA. So in one way it was a hard sharing of things, but In between that we were sharing, here are these teachers saying, and we're honoring our students’ experience and helping them think about, like, they’re living this, what are we gonna do with it? And helping them think about like, what are the stories we can turn to Where people have made movement and like, how do we then take our own voice and engage in that movement as well? Because we don't have another choice. I just. I think those are the spaces that for me I Have to move in. I don't know how else to.AYeah. So we've established that we need to be talking about this. There is no other choice. Can we talk more about, general best practices I guess in talking to young people and Benton, maybe now you can jump in with what you're thinking, what you're hoping to do, why you wanted to talk to Steph.BRight. For the benefit of the listeners, you know both of them. I am a member of the Climate Impact Corps and I'm working in St. Peter, Minnesota.SYay.BWith their Department of Public Works and one of the things that I would like to do is reach out to the schools and ask if they have any interest of someone coming in, I'm imagining me, coming in and speaking about climate change with the students.SYeah.BBecause the Climate Impact Corps is a part of AmeriCorps and supposed to be non partisan, I obviously can't get into politics in the way of parties or candidates. But I just can't, kind of like you. I can't imagine having all of this knowledge, I've been scraping together from here and there about the climate and what's wrong and what we can do and not try to engage with the people who, this will be their life's work. It doesn't matter what field they're going into. Addressing climate change is going to be the life's work of humanity for three generations. At a bare minimum. Yep.ASo when you go in, how do you not scare them away?BThe goal is not to get them cowering under their desks.SYeah. Can I jump in?BDo.S This is good goals. This is so exciting. I'm excited for you. So it's interesting because even when I do this with, so I taught children's lit to freshmen and sophomore in college, and then I taught an introduction, like a gen ed literacy class and I bring this into all my classes because I believe in it, and even in those spaces like there's a little bit of that concern of either a shutdown, like students just are like, I don't feel any type of hope about this, I don't wanna go there, or this might feel politically charged and I'm not trying to do that, but I think the way is in, whether it's with 7-year olds or 15 year olds or 20 year olds is to start with something that we know that they all can connect to. So when we were talking about the water issue for the journal, when we did our presentation, we had everybody write in response to the question, What is a memory you have of water? Because everybody has like a moment, whether it's from swimming, being thirsty, whatever it is, people have experiences with water being at a river fishing, whatever it is. People have memories, and I think particularly in Minnesota, where we are so dependent on rivers and lakes for entertainment in a lot of ways. People have memories of water. And so when we start with a question that is accessible and doesn't put people on either the defense or on the fear, it's a beginning place to say like, OK, we all value water. And then I don't think we need to name like and here are the 900 things that are going wrong with water. There's like some of that, yes, but some of it might not be that helpful at a certain point for productivity. So how do we move then from their personal experience to a sense of inquiry that says, these are important memories with water. What would we be willing to do to protect that water? What do we want that water to look like in the future? And then to move into, so what are some of the things that we might know that we need to do to protect that water for the future, so that we can have those memories again, so that we can have those experiences, so that those after us can have those experiences. And I think that is like a starting small thing. But then I think about, I think NPR did a series of stories about how the shorelines on Minnesota lakes have surpassed 50% home ownership now so there's a new concern about what's happening, but then all of these communities are coming together around different lakes to make sure that their waterfronts are more animal friendly, more sustainable,BMore natural.SYeah. So just sharing a clip like that, that type of thing is like an entry point. I also think there are some great books. I’m smiling because I'm looking at like graphic novels, depending on the age group. Astro-Nuts, have I talked to you about this by John Scieszka? Like it's kind of this wild story. He has a series of three books where the characters are, it's definitely like science fiction fantasy, but also graphic novel. But he's really addressing climate issues within the story. And so I think those are opportunities to like look at some of those pages and just have students identify what they notice and then make connections like. Here's in this story, what might this be like in the real world? And who would you, what character would you want to be in the real world? Where would you want to place yourself in this story?SAnother one that I think about, so Drawn to Change the World: 16 Youth climate activists and 16 artists of the collection. Brought together by Emma Reynolds. But it's all these different stories where it has, like Autumn Peltier, and it has a little bio. And then it has a graphic novel, like 2 pages of graphic stories about what she did and then it has where Are they now? And so it's this series of different, so like in my class I had students kind of jigsaw. Everybody took a different one and then shared something from that. So just sharing those stories all of a sudden it becomes, there are questions that naturally come up that allow then for what that means. So I think starting with a writing prompt. It's easy access. Then going to some sort of text whether that's a podcast or a book that says what do you notice about this? What do you connect to? What does this say about your story about water? Like, where do you see that line? We don't have to tell them the things if we build space for them to come up with it on their own. So that's the second piece.SAnd then the third piece is I do build in frameworks. So, Marek who I mentioned he created frameworks that I think can be helpful for thinking. So Marek in I think it might have been the first journal that he talks about it later, too, talks about the CLICK framework. And so in that framework he talks about it, can be helpful for us to think about kinship care, systems care, people care and Earth care. And so they're all connected. But so talking to students about like, It's one thing or us to care about all people, but first of all, that's not siloed, right? To care for all people we have to start thinking about what does it mean to care for all people in the world in the spaces that they are? But then if we also include things like kinship care and we say, what if we also care for our plants and our animals? Like what might that feel like? What might it mean to feel things for your dog, but also your plants, and also all the other animals and the species that we care about. What does it mean to think about the care that we take to make sure that our systems, government, school, whatever, are thoughtful towards everybody? And then ending with Earth care like, so how do we build all these things to make sure there our actual Earth itself is cared for? And so just having a framework to be like here are questions, just like you would any other theory with literature. So if we read this book, what is it telling us about kinship care? What is it telling us about Earth? What is it telling us about people care? For me when I think about teaching I think about entry point - how do students build a connection to the topic? What's the new information I'm gonna share with them? And then how are they gonna make sense of that with some sort of connection to their own world? So those are the things that I think are helpful.SAnd I will also say I say text broadly, like I love to use a clip from, well, now I'm thinking about Moana, because there's lots in Moana, but Frozen 2 is the other one. Where there are all kinds of moments where they're looking around going oh, Everything's fine. The world's on fire, but everything's fine. So how do we like, utilize things that students are already interested in and then ask questions about what's going on there.AThat does sound a little different, Benton, from what you were imagining.BYeah, a little bit.ASo Benton’s the data guy, right? And what you're saying really kind of put students at the center in terms of their connection to the world. And starting from that, I think that's certainly something you could open with Benton is a question like What is a memory you have with, or could you even go as broad as what is a memory you have about the natural world? Or would that be?BBeing outdoors.SYeah, I think it depends on the age of the students. I think a little specificity can be helpful.AWe'll say high school.SYeah. I think you could say natural world, I think you could say outside. I think you could say water? I think they'd all produce like slightly different answers so depending on where you would go with it, but I think you would get the idea of. Yeah, of like you all are connected to these spaces.AAnd then I like too, the idea of showing them something that has worked, showing them a way that people have taken action and it's made a difference.SYes, if you're working with teenagers, I think that book the Drawn to change the world, it's so great because they're short, they're accessible. They're real people who did real things that matter. Hmm.AAnd just empowering students to see themselves in that position themselves. Like, is that something you ever got growing up, Benton?BIs what?AThat that sense of empowerment, I am a part of this. My actions matter. I can do something about this or maybe the urgency wasn't there when we were in school.SOr something, I can do something more than just pick up recycling, which I mean, yes, we need to pick up garbage too, right? That's the thing.BMy specific experience was more that there wasn't, like there wasn't much focus on connection. It was more of a you can do whatever you want, you know, the sky is the limit, that sort of.SThe sky is the limit, yep. Yeah.BThing that probably has led to a worsening of the situation.SYep. The individualism versus collective. Yes.SI wonder. It just changes the conversation, I mean. A really prevalent conversation in schools is about like your responsibility that you can do for your own future, right? So just that shift from individual to collective, I think, yeah.AYeah. And you are part of a system that you cannot stand apart from, I mean some people can. And they're going to be the rich assholes.SWho literally want to build a new place on a different planet because then they don't have to worry about taking care of this one planet. Because they have the money and the means to go where they want.BThe phenomenal hubris of thinking that I can terraform a different planet rather than terraforming this one.SExactly.AMakes me so sad.SYeah. And I just think, that's about good narrative, that that there are folks who believe that they would, like, be invited to go along with this, right? Like that they would somehow be saved by somebody who would rather like create a new whole new world than like, help the one that we have. I think that's one of the things I think about storytelling and I think, I love discourse analysis. I think for me like who are people in our society who have done a really good job of telling stories that are full of hope. And what does that hope look like? And is that hope about like, take hope in this thing that's about being selfish. Or is it take hope in this way of like collectively building something that's gonna include everybody? We have to get really good at telling the story that we are all in this together.BYeah, specifically about the word hope. I'm going to get out of my lane and into yours. So there's so much discussion about finding hope when looking at the climate crisis, I feel like in a, in a lot of cases that many people equate hope with I don't need to worry about it. Yeah.BIt was, I believe it was in the Facing the climate crisis, that the author talked about discarding the the language of hope and talking instead about courage, where she she described courage.SOh, interesting.BAs the, the fortitude to to choose and do the right thing regardless of whether there is an assured outcome.AI think you are thinking of that literature professor. Genevieve something? She said, we've been telling a story about climate panic and rhetorically, that language works to delegitimize people who are raising the alarm. And she wants to rebrand it to climate courage. Do you happen to remember that professor's name?BGenevieve Guenther.AThe other thing I liked about her language is she she called it global heating instead of global warming. Oh.AAnd I was like, that's a that's a shake up that makes you think about things differently.SThat's interesting. As you were saying, I was thinking about the difference between hope and courage. I like the idea of courage, and I get why that matters. Who is her key audience was it general?BI think that was pretty general. It wasn't an academic oriented book, but yeah, another thing that I really like about that change of, you know, rhetoric. Yeah.BThere's. That's why I'm in your lane. Is thatSYeah, you are.BYou know, hope evokes passivity.AYou can hope in something or someone else.BWhere you cannot, where you cannot be courageous passively. That is an active thing.SThat is interesting. I have to kind of think about this. I think that for me, where hope feels maybe necessary is for kids because it feels unfair, I feel like we've positioned kids to be so courageous. And for so many things, because we haven't, because we haven't stepped up. I also think there is this thing that happens that sort of this like, the next generation will take care of it, right. And like we, now that’s stopped. Now it has to happen now. There's no more next generation.SI like the word courage. I'm not ready to give up on the word hope for kids because I think they  deserve to have, and I know there's like a naivete there or like this idea that I hear what you're saying about  like it might not feel as action oriented. But when my kiddo tells me that he has what ifs about so many things. I want to somehow find space that isn't totally naive or dismissive, but that also says like we're working towards something like we're going to keep going and it's, I want to be able to say and mean it's going to be OK and some of it's not gonna be OK. Mm-hmm.SBut I worry that if we don't put hope in the imagination as well, so courage is the action, but hope is the idea, and I think that because I live in story, it's about the idea in some ways, and so, and they're both, they go together. Like I think now that I'm saying this, I think we can't have one or the other and that hope might allow us to imagine courageous action.AOoh.SMaybe.BThat's interesting. Yeah, and I am. I am definitely in, professionally a pretty, diametrically different situation. Yeah, yeah.BStory is not the realm of the engineer. It isn't the realm of the tree worker. It can be, but the hands on, physically active kind of work is less about story than it is about.AI don't know though. Because remember when Steph was talking at the beginning about pulling the weeds out of the earth, right, and asking students to look for that connection on their own. That is a story.SYeah, it's about how we access that, right.BMm-hmm. Yeah, the action gives you something to tell a story about.SYes, it's embodied. Yeah.AThank you for saying that about. We can't put everything on our kids. They are still kids and they need space to hope that the adults in their lives are doing everything they can too. So yeah, kids, this is gonna be your life's work. But it's not only your work. It's our work too, yeah.A'Cause some kids are like me growing up I felt everything was my responsibility, right? To this day, I feel like everything is my responsibility.SAnd that's hard.AI joke that it was my fault that Al Gore lost the 2000 election because I wrote a song in praise of George Bush, and that was the tipping point. That's it.SThat's. That's it, Abi. No, no.AAnd like logically. I was a kid. I was. I was following what the adults in my life told me was right and it just tragedy to look back and realize what a turning point that really was.SYes. And maybe what I'm thinking about too, it's. I really appreciate what you're saying, too, Benton, about, like, where does this hit with every different type of person, right? Because It can't just be, you know, one type of learner, one type of, I don’t know, Myers Briggs personality who is up for doing this work. But I do think what I go back to is like even where we decide to find courage to do the action or what you were just saying, Abi, like you had all these adults in your life telling you this is the path to like goodness or like whatever that I will vote for this person because of this. So, you know, I think that as a public school teacher and now working at a public university, I know that when I walk into the room, 50% of the students voted for or are thinking about a candidate who has openly said no to climate policy, right. To somebody who said this is not my priority, we are not going to focus on this. We are not going to make this better. And so I think about, OK, if these are the people sitting in front of me. They all have different experiences. And they all have been told facts in certain ways from different groups, right? I don't know anymore that like the argument building shifts where they stand. But if they are saying, wait, this is my life and I have a memory or a connection or an experience that will be changed by this and like I can picture it then, like might that change how I actually respond to this work or to this idea?SAnd part of that is coming from, I'll give a shout out to the work of Nicole Mirra and Antero Garcia, who did a whole project where they were actually looking, working with students from across the country. This sounds different, but I think it's connected, On gun violence and they were thinking about how in high school classrooms, we teach argument. And they were saying we have done a really good job and you know this, Abi, from your technical writing stuff. Like, they're saying we've done a really good job of teaching students how to take their idea and then find the right sources to back it up. But what does that do for us, right? And so they took these students from across the country and created this digital platform where they took a hot topic like gun violence, and they had them start sharing personal stories, their relationship to guns, whether it was gun violence, hunting, whatever it was. And had them start talking about how actually having dialogue shifted their responses more than like building an argument that they already believed. And so I think that's part of where I have storytelling too, is like it's, it's also like when do we actually listen to to information that's being told to us?AWe actually just, our last episode was pre election and it was about listening versus arguing. Yeah, interesting.AI was hopeful. I was hopeful going into it, now I've.BYou've sworn off hope forever, right?SHopes dashed.AI've lost hope in the power of dialogue, you know. So here's the thing. I look at the wildfires in California and I see people at the highest levels of government saying things like, Oh yeah, this is God's wrath because California had a, is more liberal than conservative and the absolute thought-stopping effect that that has and people eat it up and I'm just. How could I break past that in a student?BKind of wild how God wasn't punishing us with hurricanes earlier this year or last year. In Florida.ANo, that was the Democrats clouding or seeding the clouds, remember?BOh right.SWhen people really break it down to like that story, I feel like it's easier for people to hop on to that story right, then to have to actually, like make changes in their own life but I, again, I just feel like have they had this like history of believing that story like this happens because people, you know what I mean? And so I don't think it's different than messaging around climate. Like Project 2025 was a well documented, articulate thing. I don't agree with it, but like right there was stories everywhere in that right and so I think that part of my hope in the journal and the work of the Center for Climate Literacy is what if we tell more and more stories at an early age. Like the Tantrum that saved the world, but also like, I'm gonna throw books, Jason Chin's Grand Canyon, where he has these, like, beautiful, in-depth detailed pictures and maps of the Grand Canyon that are so glorious that like a kid would just wanna like you don't necessarily wanna sit down and read the whole thing. But you just wanna, like, play with the book kind of. If we are continually showing this story, like at what point does the other story seem silly? Is there a saturation of certain types of stories that can like move the needle? And that's a genuine question.AWe are going to put in a big book order after this don't you think?BInevitably yes.SI really, really love Astro-Nut. It's super fun.AOkay, yeah. And Zoe loves graphic novels, too, so we can certainly hook her up with some of those.SYeah, it's funny.ABefore we go, so some of our audience consists of other technical communication professors. It seems to me there could be a place for their work in this journal, they don't, they may not necessarily use literature in their courses, but the idea of story is certainly not foreign to people in my area. So what's different about this journal compared to your traditional academic journal and what are you looking for? What can people send in?S This is so fun. Thank you. One thing that's the same as we are going for quality and it is peer-reviewed because I think that's important to say, but it is also focused on accessibility and I think we're getting better at what that looks like and what that means, we're shifting. It's completely open access. So that's the first thing. Like you don't have to be part of a library system to get access to it. It’s An Open Access journal so anybody can read it at any point in time.SThe second piece is we really want to highlight teacher work. So I'm the editor of the curriculum section. So that's probably I shouldn't say our biggest, but it's definitely the core part of the journal is curriculum. We have a template and we invite teachers to send in. Here's what I'm doing in the classroom, and we have sort of they can plug in resources, but also opportunity for them to say Here's how I got here. Here's what the lesson or unit is. And then here's why this matters. Here's where I'm going to, so a space for, We want teachers to share the work that they're doing. And not have to pay for it, for the ideas with each other, but instead to honor their academic intelligence and say you are published in a peer-reviewed journal because you are doing really important good work that we want to spread. And so making it accessible in that way is really important.SSo open access is the first thing. Second thing is there's a huge emphasis on curriculum. But then there also is space for shorter research pieces. We also encourage multimodal pieces, so in our last journal piece we had a link to somebody made a graphic story. It’s beautiful, a digital story. And so again, we're kind of, I think, pushing the limits of what might be included in a journal and then short, short research pieces short reflective essay pieces. I say short because it is about accessibility and getting this information out as quickly as we can to as many people as we can. We're accepting our articles on a rotating basis. Two issues the first year, two issues the second year, I think we'll have 3 again this year. We already are thinking about launching our next special issue. That again, in nuance, but it's going to be about trees.AOoh, fun. This is K12 and higher Ed, correct.SIt is. A lot of the lessons, we particularly want to focus on K12 teachers having access to it. We also have a lot of teacher educators in the mix and a lot of folks who are doing stuff in their college classroom.AOk. I am so glad you could talk with us.SAbi, thank you for having me. This is so fun.  

Ver todos los episodios