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For the graduate student body. An important announcement from Ken Hiltner, Co-Chair on the Chancellor's Sustainability Committee, on the importance of teaching on the climate crisis.
Dear Graduate Students,
As you work with your faculty to finalize your syllabi for Spring 2024, I would like to share with you an exciting teach-in to help students learn more about the climate crisis. Involving nearly 300 classes and events across 61 countries, the teach-in will occur from April 1-8, 2024.
It is essential that our students:
- Understand up-to-date science on climate change
- Learn how to critically analyze material that they encounter and how to effectively communicate what they know about the climate crisis to others
- Understand the social and political implications of climate action and inaction
- Understand the disproportionate impact of the crisis on underrepresented communities
- Understand the ways in which these same underrepresented communities are at the cutting edge of developing climate solutions.
No matter what their major, there is a role for each and every one of our students to play in helping to mitigate the climate crisis.
This effort is engaging faculty from a broad range of disciplines, including the social sciences, arts, humanities, natural sciences, and engineering. Participating faculty pledge to spend at least 30 minutes in their classrooms addressing the climate crisis in any way that they deem fit, including how their fields are engaging with climate justice and climate solutions.
On behalf of the Chancellor’s Sustainability Committee, I am asking you to consider participating in this effort for at least half an hour during the week of April 1st-8th, 2024.
#MakeClimateAClass is a global project. You can find more info here: WorldWide Climate and Justice Education Week. The project is already expected to reach more than fifty thousand people, and more faculty are making the decision to participate every day. The effort originated at Bard College and is entitled “Making Climate a Class.”
Help us track participation by signing up here today to #MakeClimateAClass for 30 or more minutes in one or more of your classes.
If you are interested in participating but do not know where to start, here is a list of some helpful resources:
- Slide Deck - including a variety of slides which you could use in your class. We encourage you to mix and match and see what works best for your curriculum.
- UC-CSU NXTerra - a resource for college teachers from across all disciplines and anyone seeking to enhance their teaching and learning about the climate crisis, critical sustainability, and climate justice studies, both inside and outside the classroom.
- Student leaders involved in climate actions locally that could present or provide resources in one of your classes:
- Associated Students Environmental Affairs Board (EAB): helped to write and advocate for the creation and updating of the UC Policy on Sustainable Practices. Also played a key role in the UC Fossil Free campaign.
- CalPIRG: A statewide student-run, student-funded nonprofit focused on protecting our environment and promoting civic engagement. Each quarter they run statewide campaigns. as an example, in 2018 they helped get the state of California committed to 100% clean energy
- Potential UCSB Presenters
- Jewel Persad (jewelpersad@ucsb.edu): UC Climate Change Policy, current and historical GHG emissions sources, reporting, and reductions.
- Katie Maynard (kcmaynard@ucsb.edu): History of and current climate actions taken by UCSB and the UC System; Alternative transportation programs and strategies to reduce transportation related emissions; Intersections of Climate Change and Food Systems
- Ken Hiltner: Climate education at UCSB
- Sustainable Course List - Includes a list of Faculty who have taught courses in the last 3 years that incorporated sustainability.
Thank you for helping your students see a role for thinking about climate in their studies. If you have any questions, please contact Jewel Persad, Campus Sustainability Manager (jewelpersad@ucsb.edu); Katie Maynard, Interim Director of Campus Sustainability (kcmaynard@ucsb.edu), or me (hiltner@ucsb.edu).
With gratitude,
Ken Hiltner
Professor, Environmental Humanities
Co-Chair, Chancellor’s Sustainability Committee