Title: Collaboration and care in climate education: Brave responses to an uncertain future

Speaker: Kathy Chandler (Lancaster) 

Abstract:

To address the complexity of the climate emergency an educational response needs to disrupt existing ideas about universities’ roles, curriculum design and the relationship between educators, students, and communities. Engaging with this challenge, academics with backgrounds in multiple subject areas within the Institute of Educational Technology at The Open University developed the postgraduate short course Teacher development: Addressing the climate emergency, in collaboration with disciplinary experts, grassroots leaders, and young climate activists.

In this presentation to CALRG, Kathy Chandler, with contributions from other members of the team, will share some of the learning from our collaborative autoethnographic study of the course development process. The presentation examines how interdisciplinary and collaborative approaches have underpinned course production. It also highlights the significance of adopting pedagogies of care in addressing the uncertainty that the climate crisis generates.

Kathy Chandler; Maria Aristeidou; Simon Ball; Koula Charitonos; Carmel Kent; Leigh-Anne Perryman; and Irina Rets

Biography: 

Until the end of 2023, Kathy Chandler worked as a Lecturer in Online Teaching within the Curriculum Team in the Institute of Educational Technology at The Open University. She has recently taken up the post of Lecturer in Technology Enhanced Learning in the Department of Educational Research at Lancaster University. Her research interests include online communities and digital pedagogy.