On Wednesday, April 3, the Columbia Climate School hosted a climate education focused event for Worldwide Climate Justice and Education Week.

For Worldwide Climate and Justice Education Week, the Columbia Climate School hosted a workshop on Wednesday, April 3 in Barnard Hall called “Everyone Can Teach Climate.” Several panels throughout the event featured educators across disciplines, multiple students students, Barnard and Columbia sustainability office representatives, and associates from the Center for Engaged Pedagogy and the Center for Teaching and Learning to educate attendees about interdisciplinary pedagogy related to climate change. In between these panels was an extended faculty development workshop in which event attendees critically reflected about incorporating climate topics into their own curricula.

The first panel entitled “Innovations and Tips for Teaching” featured educators from both scientific and non-scientific disciplines. They shared how they were incorporating ideas of climate justice into their classes. The first panelist, Joerg Schafer, is a research professor at the Lamont-Doherty Research Institute studying isotopic methods as they relate to the melting of ice. Even with a background strictly rooted in the natural sciences, Schafer acknowledged the pressing need to seamlessly integrate societal impact into traditional earth science coursework.

Another panelist Lamont-Doherty researcher Vicki Ferrini focuses on on data analysis with the goal of mapping the entire ocean floor by 2030. This natural science lens is notably complemented by a focus on “disseminating knowledge, tools, and power” through her New York City-based program, Inspire. While students at a large institution such as Columbia University may have access to climate knowledge, Ferrini is devoted to ensuring that perspectives within geoscience are diversified. A flagship component to Inspire involves a paid two-week program in which high school students in New York City are engaged with scientists at Lamont-Doherty

Jennifer Wenzel, a professor of English, South Asian studies and Africana studies, elaborated on the role of climate within literature courses. For literature departments specifically, Wenzel believes that they should move beyond “just adding a course in climate” and instead consider how climate science is entrenched in cultural narratives everywhere. When looking to teach her upcoming course on climate fiction, Wenzel offers an explanation of how climate change is creating a major paradigm shift within English literature: “setting,” or time and place, is no longer stagnant in our lives. As environmental conditions are changing, time and place is rapidly becoming an active phenomenon.

Finally, panelist Bora Chang offered an important perspective as a practitioner of communications for the National Resources Defense Council teaching a course on strategic communications at the Columbia Climate School. Chang’s firsthand experiences with the media landscape offered a significant point of view for this discussion. In her class, Chang incorporates work such as bell hook’s Teaching to Transgress to challenge traditional narratives about hierarchies within education.

Following the panel of educators, a second panel highlighted student voices across Barnard, Columbia, and Teacher’s College to speak on how best to integrate climate change centered education into classroom instruction. A sentiment echoed by many students revolved around the need for community involvement and partnership in the classroom. Leel Moka Dias, a first year student at Columbia College, is a part of an on-campus organization called Sunrise Columbia. Through this organization and other academic endeavors, he actively considers issues affecting the Greater Harlem community when thinking about environmental justice. Isis Contreras Perez, an Anthropology major at Barnard, highlighted the necessity of embracing nearby perspectives in the climate conversation.

Sara Michelle Pan Algarra of Teacher’s College took this idea further, tying together her work as a researcher and also fostering partnerships with local NGOs in Latin America. Many of the students also identified a distinct focus on intersectionality as crucial to understanding environmental politics. Columbia College Core Preceptor Amogh Binayaka Sahu spoke on species bias and a tendency for current climate science studies to take an anthropocentric lens.

Following the two academic panels, the event invited Jessica Prata of Sustainable Columbia and Leslie Raucher of Barnard Campus Sustainability to present on Columbia University’s current environmental initiatives. One of Sustainable Columbia’s flagship programs specifically revolves around integrating student education into campus initiatives. The office is a client to several capstones and theses looking at fuel efficiency, food waste, carbon footprint, and waste disposal practices, among other topics.

In addition to becoming academically involved in sustainability on Columbia’s campus, Raucher outlined the importance of student advocacy at Barnard. Currently, the sustainability office is committing to net zero emissions by 2040 and is limiting Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 emissions. By considering all three scopes, the office is looking to reduce on-campus emissions as well as energy bought from other sources. 

The event then transitioned into an open workshop in which educators at each table reflected on their own classes and identified areas to integrate intersectional thought. It was particularly impactful to hear from disciplines without a clearly visible link to earth sciences. Attendees in disciplines such as language, architecture, and theatre design made connections to sustainability concepts such as the circular economy and intersectional environmentalism in larger group discussion.

To close “Everyone Can Teach Climate,” panelists form the Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) as well as the Barnard Center for Engaged Pedagogy (CEP) shared resources for redesigning curricula at either school. Both centers offer various teaching development programs, support for cross-disciplinary courses, and one-on-one support. If Barnard students are interested in advocating ro climate related initiatives or have specific suggestions to share with relevant departments, they can copy green@barnard.edu on the emails.

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