Okay, we are slowly going to get started. We’ll ease into it and allow people time to come in and get settled. And as folks are coming in and saying hello in the chat, I know that you all will help them and welcome them as well. And hello to any of you who are watching the recording in the future, I am very grateful for you as well. You are in the right place, I hope. This is a climate action pedagogy workshop, and today we are going to specifically focus on working with the Sustainable and Inner Development Goals, also known as the SDGs and the IDGs.

As a reminder, my motto is, all courses are climate courses. Some of you may have come here today thinking that’s not the case, and, Karen, I heard you want to prove me wrong. So I welcome you here. I appreciate your willingness to be here and to explore that concept. Some of you are on board, and you are ready to integrate climate and sustainability into all of the work that we do. Wherever you are, I am very grateful that you’re here.

I woke up this morning. I have a little Lego clock. It’s Yoda. I stole it from my son when he was about eight because it doesn’t make, it doesn’t have any lights at night and it doesn’t make any noise because I can’t have a clock that makes noise or has lights at night. So I woke up this morning and I pushed Yoda’s little head, and that’s when he lights up, and it said 4:59 AM, and I hopped out of bed and I said, “It’s CAP day.” So that is the kind of excitement that I have for the work that we’re going to do today. I am so grateful that you are all here from all over the world. Really excited to share this work with you.

As I’ve been thinking more about climate action pedagogy, I really feel like these SDGs and IDGs are powerful frameworks. And you know that one of my mottos is mutualism, good for faculty and staff, good for students. And I think this really will hit that sweet spot of mutualism.

Okay, so as a reminder, I want to invite you to engage today. And there are lots of ways that you can engage in this workshop. So you can engage through the chat. You can backchannel. By that, I mean maybe you see friends in the chat and you want to private message them, or text them during the workshop, or talk to them on social media during the workshop. You can tweet. That’s pretty old. I don’t know how many of us are tweeting anymore, but good luck if you’re still doing that. Or I think, what do we call it, on Bluesky we post, on LinkedIn we post, there are probably ones, maybe you Snap, I don’t know. You can doodle, you can self-reflect, you can take notes. Some of you are watching in the future of the recording. And there will be time at the end. Ample time, I hope, for questions and answers.

So lots of ways to engage. My favourite is the chat. And I see many of you are already doing this, so please know that if you are an active chatter, I don’t feel like you’re distracting me. I don’t feel like you’re talking during class. I value that. I invite you all to use the chat to answer each other’s questions, to ask questions, share resources, sort of go aha, and to deeply engage in this workshop. So this is our workshop. We’re in it together to learn from each other, so please do engage, feel free to borrow this slide. I think it’s really important that we are explicit with our learners about how we want them to engage.

Okay, we are slowly going to get started. We’ll ease into it and allow people time to come in and get settled. And as folks are coming in and saying hello in the chat, I know that you all will help them and welcome them as well. And hello to any of you who are watching the recording in the future, I am very grateful for you as well. You are in the right place, I hope. This is a climate action pedagogy workshop, and today we are going to specifically focus on working with the Sustainable and Inner Development Goals, also known as the SDGs and the IDGs.

As a reminder, my motto is, all courses are climate courses. Some of you may have come here today thinking that’s not the case, and, Karen, I heard you want to prove me wrong. So I welcome you here. I appreciate your willingness to be here and to explore that concept. Some of you are on board, and you are ready to integrate climate and sustainability into all of the work that we do. Wherever you are, I am very grateful that you’re here.

I woke up this morning. I have a little Lego clock. It’s Yoda. I stole it from my son when he was about eight because it doesn’t make, it doesn’t have any lights at night and it doesn’t make any noise because I can’t have a clock that makes noise or has lights at night. So I woke up this morning and I pushed Yoda’s little head, and that’s when he lights up, and it said 4:59 AM, and I hopped out of bed and I said, “It’s CAP day.” So that is the kind of excitement that I have for the work that we’re going to do today. I am so grateful that you are all here from all over the world. Really excited to share this work with you.

As I’ve been thinking more about climate action pedagogy, I really feel like these SDGs and IDGs are powerful frameworks. And you know that one of my mottos is mutualism, good for faculty and staff, good for students. And I think this really will hit that sweet spot of mutualism.

Okay, so as a reminder, I want to invite you to engage today. And there are lots of ways that you can engage in this workshop. So you can engage through the chat. You can backchannel. By that, I mean maybe you see friends in the chat and you want to private message them, or text them during the workshop, or talk to them on social media during the workshop. You can tweet. That’s pretty old. I don’t know how many of us are tweeting anymore, but good luck if you’re still doing that. Or I think, what do we call it, on Bluesky we post, on LinkedIn we post, there are probably ones, maybe you Snap, I don’t know. You can doodle, you can self-reflect, you can take notes. Some of you are watching in the future of the recording. And there will be time at the end. Ample time, I hope, for questions and answers.

So lots of ways to engage. My favourite is the chat. And I see many of you are already doing this, so please know that if you are an active chatter, I don’t feel like you’re distracting me. I don’t feel like you’re talking during class. I value that. I invite you all to use the chat to answer each other’s questions, to ask questions, share resources, sort of go aha, and to deeply engage in this workshop. So this is our workshop. We’re in it together to learn from each other, so please do engage, feel free to borrow this slide. I think it’s really important that we are explicit with our learners about how we want them to engage.

Okay, some of you have attended CAP round one, but if not, that is okay. So this is sort of CAP round two or maybe 1.5. So let me assure you that the workshop today does not depend on you having attended the first version of CAP. And if you attended the first version of CAP, this is going to take you in some new directions. If you would like to attend the first version of CAP, we have created a self-paced course for you on One Higher Ed. And details about that are on the link that I just sent you. It is free for One Higher Ed members, or there is a free trial, or One Higher Ed has a very reasonable monthly rate, or you can tell your, ask your provost, “Hey, can we get an institutional membership?” So there’s a way for everybody to access it. And this is sort of the foundational course of climate action pedagogy. Any questions about that, feel free to pop them in the chat.

If you are looking for, if you’re here perhaps for community, I know that’s one of the reasons that I’m here. I’m here to find my people and hang with my people. If you would like to do more of that, I am starting a new offering through AASHE, which is the sustainability education group. And I have loved working with AASHE over the past year and learning from them, and attending their workshops. Great stuff. They have paid and free offerings. This Climate Circle is going to be a free offering. It’s going to be the first Wednesday of the month, starting in October at 1:00 PM Eastern Time for 30 minutes. It is free, and it is virtual. It’s informal. It’s a 30-minute hang to check in with each other and talk about the gifts and challenges of the work of bringing climate action into our courses. So you’ve got, I’ve given you a couple options in the website for how you can register for the Climate Circle. Bookmark that, maybe come back to that later today, but I really encourage you to find your people and hold them close. And that is one of the spaces where you can do that.

Okay, today’s invitation is that everything today is an invitation, okay? So nothing is forced, nothing is required. Everything is an invitation. Don’t feel like you’ve got to do it my way, okay? Adapt this to your needs and your context. I’m teaching in very specific contexts. I’m an adjunct at multiple institutions. You’ve got your own context. You’ve got to figure out what works best for you. So I want to emphasise that I’m not, there’s no advice here, and there’s no telling anybody what to do. These are offerings for you to decide what works for you. Cameras can be on or off, you can switch in between. You might want to really go for it today and come out of this with lots of new ideas. And you might also want to chill, and relax, and just kind of hang out and be here for the community. Everybody is welcome, novice or experts, we’re happy to have you here. I feel like both on any given day. And, of course, we all have these whole human selves that we’re bringing to this work.

So I know at this time of year, I just was supporting my high school sophomore as he was thinking about his schedule that we’re just getting wind of. And we’ve got his first day of school coming. I’m prepping classes. There’s a lot going on this time of year, so please take care of yourself and do what you need to do today. Any questions about that, pop them in the chat.

All right, here’s our agenda. Just an FYI, I don’t have any breakout rooms planned today, so if you were looking forward to that, sorry, maybe next time. And if you weren’t looking forward to that, then that’s great news. We’re going to check in in a minute. We’re going to talk about doughnuts. Hopefully that gets some of you excited. I’m going to review the SDGs and IDGs with you, the Sustainable Development and Inner Development Goals. We have two short activities. And what I mean by activity is I’m going to give you five minutes to reflect and explore the templates that I’ve created for you. And then we’ll debrief after each, and then we’ll wrap up with questions, okay?

Niya just popped the slides and my website in the chat for you as well. Thanks, Niya. Okay, so back in the chat, and we’ve got a growing group of people, so the chat will get lively. That’s okay. Where are you now? So I want to invite you into the chat, and I’d like to ask you to share an emoji. So if you click in the chat, you’ll see there’s a little emoji icon that you can click to open up the emoji keyboard. How are you feeling right now about integrating climate action into your teaching? I shared three emojis ’cause I’m a little extra on the slide there.

Okay, so I’m seeing, I’m seeing some nerves. I’m seeing some, okay, some of us are going to rock on here. I’m seeing some happiness, I’m seeing some curiosity. Tanya, are those, oh, hi Tanya, dear. Are those happy tears or sad tears? Maybe a little of both. So what I’m seeing here in the chat is a mixed bag, okay? Yeah. And if you don’t want to share an emoji and you want to share a word or phrase, as I said, everything’s an invitation. So in the chat, I’m going to share another resource. I just shared this on social earlier today. This is a great, I’ve been sharing this so much lately, the feelings wheel. So that might be a great resource for you to name the emotions that are coming up as you do this work, as you’re working with students to name the emotions that are coming up. It’s important. This is emotional work. This is work that we, a big responsibility to have this conversation with our students, right?

So we want to be aware and taking care of ourselves so that we can do that work. This is also, I want to say here, I’m not going to, nothing I’m going to cover today is going to be the scary stuff, so I’m really focused on a solutions mindset. I know, you know, the data, and I have that there in my back pocket, and I’m sure you all know where to find it. But just to reassure you, I really like to keep us focused on solutions, community, designing positive solutions in our classrooms. So if that was on your mind as a worry, you can set that aside.

Okay, I love the feelings combo taking place in the chat. Keep that going. This is a quote I love to share when I do this work from Andrea Gibson. Andrea is a poet. And Andrea’s quote is, “Even when the truth isn’t hopeful, the telling of it is.” So, you know, there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of things to be concerned about. And sometimes we’ll read the news, and it is anything but hopeful. But talking about it, I believe, taking action is hopeful, especially when we do it in supportive communities.

So just a reminder, if you’re experiencing climate anxiety, that is real, it is incredibly reasonable, and on a personal level and what we see through the research is that when we take action in community, climate anxiety is lessened, okay? I’m deep in the literature around the emotional impacts of climate action pedagogy for a consulting project I’m working on. And again, I just want to emphasise that our students want to have these, want and need to have these conversations. These conversations do bring up climate anxiety. And what we know is that when we focus on solutions and small actions in supportive communities, that climate anxiety is lessened, okay? So a reminder today of sort of that frame for our work.

Okay, in the chat, here is our first pop quiz. Does anybody know? And don’t peek on the slides. Does anybody know what this doughnut has to do? It’s a picture of a doughnut, white glazed with pink and yellow and white sprinkles on it. Does anybody know what this picture has to do with climate action? Cheryl, Jennifer, Ananda. We love you saying, we love the people who were brave enough to say, “I have no idea.” Wonderful. Okay. “Making me hungry.” Same. Okay, good. Wonderful place to start.

So this is what I am working toward, so I want to be very transparent about that. This is what I’m working toward, and I think it’s helpful to sort of have the end goal in mind as we’re doing this workshop. This is a picture of the doughnut from the economist, Kate Raworth, who, let me pop that link in the chat, who has a book called “Doughnut Economics.”

And you’ll see here the doughnut. When we talk about getting into the doughnut, the doughnut is this safe and just space for humanity, where we are also living within the gifts and limitations of the natural environment of which we are a part. When we break through the ecological ceiling, which is what we have already done, we’re living outside of the doughnut in this direction. And when we fail to meet the basic needs of our fellow humans, we’re shortfalling in the other directions. So right now, we’re sort of living on both sides outside of the doughnut. And “Doughnut Economics” is the idea of bringing us, bringing our species back into the doughnut. So honouring the limitations of our natural environment and making sure that people’s basic needs are met.

Does anybody in the chat have a guess of why gender equality is a Sustainable Development Goal? Why is gender equity a climate action issue? What happens climate-wise when girls and women are educated, and taken care of, and given resources? What happens in terms of environmentally speaking? Does anybody have a guess? Better family planning, which leads to, Kate, what’s the big picture outcome of that? If we’re thinking in terms of environmental impact. Population, yes, Chelsea. So ding, ding, ding. So overpopulation. So when we, with honouring reproductive rights, protecting reproductive rights, educating girls and women, women delay having babies and give birth to fewer babies. So it is directly addressing overpopulation, which obviously is part of that doughnut conversation, right?

So take a minute and look over this. Does anybody have, in the chat, I would love for you to share, is anybody already working on any of these 17 Sustainable Development Goals in their courses? So I just gave you one example. Some of you might not necessarily, and I would love for you to perhaps name which goal you’re working on. So I would love for you to start thinking, yeah, Jason, inadvertently counts. Here’s what I want you to think about. So, quality education, for example, are any of you. Yes, perfect. Heather. Are any of you talking about education in your courses? You might not be naming that as number four of the Sustainable Development Goals, but you are absolutely addressing that in your courses. Are any of you just discussing gender equity? Are any of you talking about peace and justice in your courses? You might not be naming that as number 16 on the Sustainable Development Goals, okay? That’s what we’re going to do here today. We’re going to help you name that.

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Absolutely. So in industry, in innovation, infrastructure, health and wellbeing, anybody talking about health and wellbeing? We can’t do climate action work if we aren’t taking care of our health and our wellbeing. I know you all are doing these things. I also know that, I’m seeing, I’m, like, thrilled by being bombarded by the yeses in the chat. I also know that many of you aren’t naming it as such. So the invitation today is to start naming this and to start claiming it for ourselves, for our students, our communities, and our institutions.

This is the model that I am increasingly bringing into my work and bringing forth to higher education. What would this look like on your campus? What would this look like for, let’s forget the whole big, big picture now. What would this look like on your campus? Is a great question to ask and bring forward into conversations. This is what we’re going to work on today, okay? So the goal of the work we’re doing today and bringing climate action to ourselves, and our students, and our communities is to bring us into the doughnut. And one of the ways that we can do that is through the SDGs and the IDGs.

So give me a heads up in the chat. Have folks heard of the SDGs, the Sustainable Development Goals, before today? So maybe a yes or a no. Okay, I see a lot of yeses. That’s exciting. Yeah, yep, yep, yep. Okay, good. Okay, good. I’ve got a few no’s, but I’ve got a really good group of yeses. So some of you are going to have, you’re going to know things that I don’t know, and I invite you to share your resources. Let me pop the SDG website into the chat as well.

So the SDGs were developed by all 193 UN member states, and there are 17 of them. So take a minute here. I just put the website in there as well, if you’d like to scan through it there. Some examples. The SDG stands for Sustainable Development Goals. So the idea here is that these goals will help to bring us back into the doughnut. So examples of these include probably obvious things like affordable and clean energy, right? But they also include things like good health and wellbeing. Education, partnerships for the goals, peace, justice, and strong institutions. One of my personal favourites, gender equality.

Does anybody in the chat have a guess of why gender equality is a Sustainable Development Goal? Why is gender equity a climate action issue? What happens climate-wise when girls and women are educated, and taken care of, and given resources? What happens in terms of environmentally speaking? Does anybody have a guess? Better family planning, which leads to, Kate, what’s the big picture outcome of that? If we’re thinking in terms of environmental impact. Population, yes, Chelsea. So ding, ding, ding. So overpopulation. So when we, with honouring reproductive rights, protecting reproductive rights, educating girls and women, women delay having babies and give birth to fewer babies. So it is directly addressing overpopulation, which obviously is part of that doughnut conversation, right?

So take a minute and look over this. Does anybody have, in the chat, I would love for you to share, is anybody already working on any of these 17 Sustainable Development Goals in their courses? So I just gave you one example. Some of you might not necessarily, and I would love for you to perhaps name which goal you’re working on. So I would love for you to start thinking, yeah, Jason, inadvertently counts. Here’s what I want you to think about. So, quality education, for example, are any of you. Yes, perfect. Heather. Are any of you talking about education in your courses? You might not be naming that as number four of the Sustainable Development Goals, but you are absolutely addressing that in your courses. Are any of you just discussing gender equity? Are any of you talking about peace and justice in your courses? You might not be naming that as number 16 on the Sustainable Development Goals, okay? That’s what we’re going to do here today. We’re going to help you name that.

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Absolutely. So in industry, in innovation, infrastructure, health and wellbeing, anybody talking about health and wellbeing? We can’t do climate action work if we aren’t taking care of our health and our wellbeing. I know you all are doing these things. I also know that, I’m seeing, I’m, like, thrilled by being bombarded by the yeses in the chat. I also know that many of you aren’t naming it as such. So the invitation today is to start naming this and to start claiming it for ourselves, for our students, our communities, and our institutions.

So I want to hear folks saying, “My gender studies course is a climate action course,” right? When people are talking about cutting gender studies programmes, I want you to have the language to say, “Sustainability is in our new strategic plan and our mission, and gender equity is a Sustainable Development Goal.” And that is what I’m teaching, right? So naming and claiming that power across the SDGs. We’re going to come back to the SDGs, okay? So right now, this was just an introduction to give you a feel from them, feel for them.

Okay, these are the IDGs. They are newer than the SDGs, and a lot of folks might be familiar with the SDGs, but not the IDGs. Niya just shared the link in the chat. I will note to get to this image that you see on the screen, you will want to, if you click on the IDG link Niya just shared, you’ll want to scroll down a bit, and then you’ll see this graphic at the bottom.

So the IDGs were developed after the SDGs, and they were developed because there was an awareness that we were not making good progress on the SDGs. We need to do more. This is probably not news to any of you here. And the realisation was that from a systems change perspective, there was a growing awareness that we really need to work with people at the level of mindset in order to change structures and to change behaviour. Let me say that again, because it’s important. At the systems change level, we need to focus on changing mindsets in order to change structures and change behaviours. And the IDGs are really zoned in on changing mindsets.

So there’s five IDGs, and there are subtopics under each IDG. So the first IDG is being, the second is thinking, the third is relating, the fourth is collaborating, and the fifth is acting. In the chat, does anybody cover any of these IDGs in their teaching? And if you would be so kind as to share which ones. I’m going to take a drink of water while you think about that for a minute, and again, this might be without naming it as such.

Heather, I want to push back on that, my friend. I have a feeling you’re doing critical thinking in your classes. I have a feeling perhaps you’re doing connectedness. True, yes. Perspective skills, perhaps mobilisation skills, perhaps creativity. Yes, yes, yes. Okay. I really don’t think I could find an educator in this country who’s not touching on at least one of these IDGs. However, I suspect that many of you are not naming and claiming that. And I want you to do that. I want you to be able to say, “I am teaching my students self-awareness in my psychology course.” Or my first year I teach, one of the courses I teach is first-year experience. I am teaching my students self-awareness. That is climate action. That is a climate action skill.

The idea on the IDGs is that these are those inner mindsets that will allow us to engage with the SDGs. If I don’t have self-awareness, how am I going to go out in the world and work with other people, right? If I don’t have mobilisation skills, how am I going to learn to take all of this in and figure out a way forward to create change? I could go on and on here, right? So these are inner skills that we are meant to develop, to shift mindsets, to then support us in working into those Sustainable Development Goals and getting our species into that doughnut, okay?

And again, I want you to name this and claim this for yourselves, for your students, for your communities, for your campuses. I want to see people naming in their tenure and promotion packets that teaching students humility, or courage, or empathy. Those of you who teach literature, we have data that fiction increases students’ empathy skills. I want you to name that and claim that as a climate action skill, okay? Empathy and compassion are climate action skills, okay? So that’s what we’re here to do today.

So I have created some templates for you. This is probably the part of the workshop I’m most scared of because it involves sharing some links with you all. So we’re going to take a deep breath, and we’re going to trust. Trust was one of the IDGs. Niya has some links to back me up on this. I’m going to give you a tour of the templates first, and then we’re going to get you all situated as best we can.

If for any reason you can’t open the templates, I don’t think that’s going to happen. But if, knock on wood, if you can’t, we’ll sort it out later and I’ll email them to you. So I have created two templates for you to work in, the Sustainable Development Goals template and the Inner Development Goals template. So I’m going to take you on a quick tour of those templates.

So when I started working with the SDGs and IDGs, there’s a lot of great content out there, but I’m a template gal. This is partly due to my ADHD and neurodivergence. My brain really sort of… Templates help all of this to come into a more structured approach. So it really sort of calms me down emotionally and helps me to focus. So I’ve created two templates. The first one is for the SDGs. And the first step is for you to look at each SDG and give yourself a rating of whether or not you’re using this already, okay? So one is I’m not using it at all, two is a little bit, and three is comprehensive. And then, if you’d like, you can write how you are meeting this SDG, okay? Let me zoom in a little bit for you all.

Okay, so that’s step one. In step two, you’re going to think about what might you like to do. So step one is about noticing what you’re already doing. And step two is about setting a goal for what you might like to explore. So perhaps you are teaching a course and you really zone in on gender equity, but you’d like to think more about peace, justice, and strong institutions. This template will help you get clear about that, okay? So that’s the SDG template. I’m going to share that with you all in a minute.

This is the IDG template. So this is the same thing, but focused on those Inner Development Goals. So you’ll see here, there’s a list of those IDGs, a chance to self-rate, and to share how you’re already meeting this goal. And then there’s a place to set goals for what you’d like to do. So we’re doing two things here. We’re celebrating what we’re already doing, and then we’re setting small, small goals for what we might like to explore, okay?

So those are the templates. Let me give you a few other tips on the templates. I’m going to share two different links with you. There’s a Google Doc option and there’s a Notion option. Do I have any Notion geeks in here? Fellow Notion geeks? Susanne, I’m going to share them in one second. I’m just introducing them. Oh, Niya has already started sharing them. They’re in the speaker’s notes. I’m going to share them in a minute as well.

So if you’re a Notion geek, I’ve got you covered. If you prefer Google Docs, I’ve got you there. You can use one or both of these. So if you’re like, “Karen, the SDGs, wasn’t into it, but I love the IDGs,” you don’t need to, you don’t need to play with the SDGs or vice versa. Or you can do both, and you can do them in any order. These can be done solo or in groups. So I am giving these to you all. You can take them out into the world. They have my, you know, little name at the bottom, so I would appreciate if you would keep that there and give me appropriate credit. But if you want to bring these to a department meeting, or a division meeting, or working groups, let’s get this out there into the world.

These can be used for tiny shifts. They could also be part of a large-scale curriculum redesign. I would say don’t do a large-scale curriculum design unless someone is paying you to do so, or giving you a course release, okay? If that’s not the case, I would really encourage you to think small. And these can be used for a quick pulse check on your teaching or for more in-depth reflection, okay?

So real quick, I want to recap us before I give you those template links. I know some of you’re already popping in there, that’s fine. I want to give you a quick recap of the CAP model. So CAP is based on three tenets. The first is accessibility. So as you’re working in these templates and you’re thinking about perhaps strengthening things in your courses or adding in new things, I want you to remember that we’re not going to leave anybody behind. So that means things like adding alt text to images, adding captions to our videos, providing transcripts for audios, things like that. It’s also recognising that our marginalised folks are adaptability experts, and we want to centre marginalised communities’ disabled folks as leaders and support them in this work. So let’s keep accessibility at the forefront.

Number two is emergent strategy. So we celebrate the power of small. If you want to ask yourself how you’re going to scale the IDGs and SDGs, you’re welcome to. I don’t do that. I don’t start with scale. I actually don’t think of scale very much at all. I focus instead on critical connections over critical mass. That is one of the tenets of emergent strategy. That’s not the norm in higher education, but that’s cool, I’m happy to not be in the norm.

And then the third tenet is learning experience design, LXD, and to ask yourself, who are my learners? What do they want and need? And what is the context in which they’re learning? And then to ask the same thing for ourselves. So again, adapt everything to what you need and design appropriately.

Okay, so I’m going to give you the, let me grab those links. I’m going to pop those links. I’m just going to go back here to grab them. ? Ah da da ? Okay, I’m going to give you the SDG template in the chat. So go ahead and open that up, and it should force a copy. And if somebody wants to let me know that they can open that, maybe give me a thumbs up. Thanks, Brian. So that’s your SDG template. It’s forcing a copy so that you can edit it, okay? So you can type into it. And now I’m going to give you the IDG template in a Google Doc. So there’s your IDG template. And then last but not least, so if you don’t know what Notion is, don’t click on this. If you have Notion, you’ll know that you have to select Duplicate at the top.

Darby, it shouldn’t. Which one says view only, my friend? You should be able to make a copy. Is everybody else able to? Yes, Google Doc. Got it. Perfect. Okay, and I just popped those Notion tools in there as well.

Okay, so here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to go back to this slide. I’m going to give you five minutes to work with the SDGs. And then we’re going to come back as a group, and you’re going to get to share out questions and ideas that come up for you. So here are the directions for that SDG. Oops, not so fast, honey. Here are the directions for the SDG reflection. I don’t want you to try to fill out the whole template today ’cause we only have a limited amount of time.

So what I’d like you to do today is to look at step one of the SDG template, SDG, Sustainable Development Goals. We’ll start there. And I want you to look at one SDG that you are currently using that you could be more explicit about naming as climate action in your teaching. And I’d like you to note that on the template, okay? And you can do that. You can say, “I’m going to come back to this later,” or you can start popping in ideas. One SDG you’re already using. If you truly feel like you’re not using any of them, you can certainly skip over that step, okay? But I have a feeling most of you are using at least one of the SDGs.

Step two, in step two of the template, I want you to identify one SDG that you’re feeling curious or excited about. I want you to note that in the template, and then I want you to, if you’d like to start putting in some notes that are coming up about how you might use that in your teaching, you can pop that into the template. Again, you’ve got about five minutes, so, you know, time will be dependent. Any questions about this activity? I’m going to set five minutes on my clock, pop your questions into the chat. Niya, I’m going to go on mute, but I am going to be watching the chat, so if questions come up, pop them in the chat. This is a chance to peruse the SDGs. After this, we’ll come together, and we’ll do a little debrief. Questions. Okay, five minutes, and enjoy the template and pop your questions into the chat.

All right, wherever you are, I want to invite you to start winding down. And if you are in the flow and you want to keep going with this, you can certainly mute me and just keep playing in the template. But I’m going to move us forward, and my alarm is going to stop there.

Okay, so in the chat, I want to invite you to share any reactions you have to the SDGs. What was your first reaction to them? Or, I know some of you have seen them before, so maybe if you had a little time to look at them through this different lens, did you have any new reactions? What did you learn about what you’re already doing in your teaching? And did anybody come up with any fun ideas about how they might incorporate the SDGs in their work?

So the chat is already getting exciting, which is good. I appreciate the links. I like how… I always need time to integrate that kind of information before I can think of a goal. Great. Yes, absolutely. So yeah, you can have these and do them as you think about them. “I teach Dene First Nation students, Northern Saskatchewan. Life on the land is essential.” Yes, so that one is grabbing you, it sounds like. “Touch on others a lot, but gender equity is something I would like to emphasise more.” Wonderful. Meg said, “I was surprised I was already doing so many.” Yes. That’s one of the things that I think is most exciting to me about this work because so many faculty say to me, “Karen, wait, I have to do something else. I have to do like,” you know? All of the things that we’ve been asked to do in the past few years, fewer resources, lots on our plates. And I want you to think about this as an opportunity to not work harder, but to work smarter. And that climate action might not be necessarily about doing something totally different, but simply naming things that you are already doing in a more explicit way.

Cheryl, I love this. “I have trouble finding goals that what I teach don’t link to.” Jason, “Inspired and overwhelmed.” Wonderful. Just a reminder for those who might feel overwhelmed, small is all. The goal is not to hit all 17 next week, okay? I’m not doing that, and I don’t want you to either. It might not even be to add, you know, to do any of this next week. It might be, I’m going to chill and process this, and maybe I’ll start integrating this in the spring, okay? “We teach a faculty development course on teaching online. I’d like to figure out how to incorporate more of these into our courses.” Yes, all jobs are climate jobs.

“I’ve incorporated certain SDGs, however, sometimes when I teach them, I feel like they are more aspirational than realistic, considering 2030.” Yes. So, Amber, I think you, you might get more out of the IDGs, and that, you know, that’s one of the reasons the IDGs were developed. So that’s a very reasonable observation. And I think a great conversation to have with our students, right? We have these goals, we haven’t been making progress, the Inner Development Goals were developed. Now what? I think that’s a great… This is not about, you know, living in the fantasy. We can have these difficult conversations with our students.

Okay. Gorgeous. So we’re going to shift now to the IDGs. And I don’t want to play favourites, but these are my favourites. I love the IDGs. When I saw them, something clicked for me. I pretty much flipped out, almost immediately designed this workshop. The short link is in the chat for the IDG template. And I’m going to give you about five minutes to look through the IDGs. Keep in mind, let me show you all. When you go to the IDG page that I sent you, you’re going to want to scroll down, and this is where you will see the full list. And if you click Explore, it brings you into this cool webpage. Not webpage, but this cool section where you can explore them in more detail. So again, the link I gave you, and then you’re going to scroll down and you’ll see Explore. There’s not a direct link to that. So that’s an option. If you want to go more deeply, you’re going to scroll down and click Explore.

Okay, so the IDG template is very similar. I want you to identify one IDG you’re currently using that you could perhaps be more explicit about naming as climate action. So, for example, that might look like, I teach presence. The ability to be in the here and now without judgement and in a state of open-minded presence. Maybe that’s something you’re already doing in one of your courses. Maybe you give your students some quiet time to journal or to reflect in your classes, and you thought that was just good practice, and now you’re like, “Oh, okay.” That’s an example of climate action that you can name and claim with your students, okay?

And then I’d like you to identify one IDG that you’re curious or excited about that you’d like to possibly explore in the future, okay? Don’t try to do all of them, okay? We don’t want anybody else overwhelmed. So I’m going to give you five minutes. After I set my timer, I’m going to have my eyes on the chat, I’m going to get muted. Any questions, pop them in the chat, and then in five minutes we’ll check back in and brainstorm, and then we’ll shift into questions, and you all can come off mute and rest my voice, okay? So five minutes working on the IDGs, and I will be in the chat if you need me.

All right, folks, wherever you are, I’m going to invite you to start winding down. If you’re in flow and you want to keep going, please do so. But I’m going to bring us back together. We had some great resources shared in the chat. Tracy Bula is here, and Tracy shared a great classroom checklist to assess, to map your courses to the SDGs, a mapping tool. So thank you to Tracy. I shared that in the chat. You might want to bookmark that.

Okay, so how did that go? Go ahead and share in the chat. We’ll debrief on this, and then we’ll have about 15 minutes for questions, so I’m kind of excited that I’m on time. So for now, share in the chat. What was your first reaction to the IDGs? If they’re new to you or if they’re not new to you, maybe today’s reaction. What did you learn about what you’re already doing? We don’t always have to do, we don’t always have to add. Sometimes it’s about naming what we’re already doing. Did anybody come up with fun ideas for how you might teach with and to the IDGs? And then I’m curious, are people feeling that feeling I had of I love the IDGs or I love the SDGs. Are people feeling an immediate reaction or preference there?

Okay, Bonnie has shared, yep, excellent book, “Limits to Growth”. Would really love to put that in the hands of every college president. You know, a girl can dream. We don’t always have to reinvent the wheel. Yeah, one of the tenets of design is subtractive design. Sometimes it’s what we’re taking away, and that allows us to highlight what’s most important. “First reaction. IDGs are new to me, and I love them.” Yay. “I learn I’m already doing many of these more than I realised, but I’m not naming and claiming it.” That’s what I said. That’s why we’re here. Yeah, I want you all to name these and claim these in your syllabi, in your course announcements, in your discussions, in your tenure and promotion packets, okay? You’re doing climate action, and I just want to help you get more explicit about that so that we can build on that existing strength.

“IDGs are my gem.” Kate, you are my hero. So on the IDG website, I want to point you all to, there is an IDG summit. This is not an ad, but it just started to sound like one. On the IDG website, if you go to Events, they’re having a summit that you can register for. It’s right here. It’s called The Space In Between. It’s in Stockholm. I will not be travelling to Stockholm. I would like to travel to Stockholm, but it’s just not in the cards for me. So I’m going to be attending online. It’s pretty affordable. I want to say it was like $75 US. I’m going to that summit. I’m ready to go right now. So if you all want to join me, we’ll get a group going. But that is available.

“I like the IDGs, but they don’t go deep enough for change.” Yeah, Virginia, you might, you can take them deeper. Keep in mind also, the IDGs are new, so they’re building them out. I was saying to somebody else in the chat, they’re doing another survey right now, an international survey to collect more data and to build them out. So that is something to think about. Virginia’s got another link to share, so check that out.

Bonnie wants to crowdfund getting limits to growth in the hands of every college university president. Let’s not not do that, right? Let’s not not do that. In the US, we need a lot of these IDGs to get through election season. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful tie in to work with the IDGs in the context of the election and the context of climate action and talking about different candidates’ climate action policies and how we have to work to protect democracy and to vote as we are doing our climate action work. Yeah, so we’ve got a lot to do there. What I still really love is wild pedagogies.

Okay, so you all just, it’s going off here in the chat, and there’s a lot going on here, but I’m going to move us forward. So keep chatting, keep chatting, but I am going to move us forward here.

Okay, so as you are making decisions about what you’re going to do next, the first thing I want you to prioritise is to celebrate a name and claim what you are already doing, okay? So what that might look like. If you are teaching a course that addresses gender equity, you might include a link to the IDGs, or excuse me, the SDGs, and you might name that SDG in your syllabus. You might look at your course announcements and start linking to the SDGs and naming that work as climate action. You might lead a class discussion on why is gender equity a climate action issue. That would be, those are the kind, I’m not talking about a full course redesign, folks, okay? I’m talking about starting to weave in small pieces.

Then the next thing you might do, maybe not now, maybe not this term, maybe in the future, is to start thinking about, now I want to intentionally bring in another SDG or IDG, okay? Not doing full course redesigns ’cause we’re, unless we’re, you know, getting paid or supported to do that. So we’re looking at small actions.

As a reminder, I want you to think about mutualism. So mutualism is the idea that we’re going to seek spaces that benefit both students and faculty. And that means we’re not going to say, I want to redesign my entire course by next week to include every SDG and every IDG because that, we say that might benefit students, right? But that’s not going to benefit us because that’s going to burn us out. So we are always being mindful of staying in that sweet spot.

As an addition to that note on mutualism, I have another template for you. This one’s called the scope of practice template. And this is a tool I’ve created. It’s a free tool, it’s open for you to use, that will help you think about what your scope of practice is as an educator. And so your scope of practice is not saving the planet, for example. Your scope of practice is doing your part. So that will help you get clear about what’s yours and what’s not yours. And that can help reduce some of the overwhelm.

Oops. Okay, so in the chat, I would love for you to share where any or all, answers to any or all of these questions, then we’ll shift over to your questions. Where are you now? You can share an emoji, you can share a word or a phrase. You might want to share, what’s your next small step? Or you might want to share, what critical connection can you develop? So maybe your critical connection, maybe you met somebody in the chat here that you want to reach out to on LinkedIn, or maybe you want to share, you know, how people can reach you. Where are you now, and/or what’s your next small step, and/or what critical connection can you develop? I’m going to take a sip of water while you all share out.

Ananda says, “Time to do some research.” Wonderful. Mary, “There’s some things exploding.” Carrie, “Do you have the scope of practice template outside Google Docs?” I do, Carrie, I have it in Notion. If you want to reach out to me, if you go to my 100faculty.com website, there’s a contact page if that helps you. You all are going wild here. I love it. “I will be sharing this information with our sustainability committee. They’re interested in implementing these ideas in their courses. Exploding in a good way.” That’s good. “Thinking about a faculty learning community here at our university.” That would be gorgeous, and working with these goals. “I have two days tied to having difficult conversations that I plan to use in a writing class, and I can link that to IDGs. And name that and claim that with your students. We’re doing climate action here as we learn to communicate across difference.” I’m so glad, Brian. Wonderful. Wonderful.

Okay, lots going on here. Lots going on here. Thank you so much. Okay, I’ve also put a link in the, let me pop it in the chat. Western University in Canada has a climate change course. It’s a free course if you want to learn more. They’ve done such good work, and it’s an open course, so I always like to share that.

I want to ask for a quick favour. I am going to be doing some interviews in the autumn and spring. I’m taking a course through the Biomimicry Institute. Biomimicry is about learning from the natural environment, and I’m going to be doing their programme, Biomimicry for Educators. And part of that is to do some research, including interviews. And also, I shouldn’t do this to myself, but maybe a potential book project. So if you are willing to be interviewed, there is a Google Form, and you can fill that out. And then, I’m not there yet, but I would love to have your name on that list if you’re interested and willing. And I’d basically, for 30 to 60 minutes, be talking to you about your climate action pedagogy, including that you’re not doing it yet. That’s great, too. You can give me lots of insights or if you’re already doing it.

Okay, I’m going to move us to questions and discussion, which means I’m going to stop sharing, and then I get to see you all. Yes, keep that chat going. Okay, so I am here till 1:45. Niya is here, Dasha is here. The chat is open. If you have questions, you can pop them in the chat. And if you’d like to come off mute, raise your hand, and I can pull you off mute and you can ask your question. You can also share ideas or resources. Ananda, yes. Thank you, my friend. Okay, so Ananda is my first person that I get to practice my… Let’s see if this works. Ask to unmute.

– [Ananda] Okay, yes, so this is-

– Perfect. It worked.

– [Ananda] Yeah, so it’s a really wonderful session, but I’m wondering to know, like, SDG is the like global movement or global action or something like that. But who is the initiator for the IDG? So I’m very curious about that one too.

– Yes, so my understanding of that is that it came out of this group at the UN. So I think that was on one of the earlier slides. So if you go to that Sustainable Development Goals link, you can find the history of the SDGs, which was, I think it was a hundred, don’t quote me exactly, but I believe it was 197 countries. It was a UN, United Nations-led initiative. And that same group, that was 2015, I believe. I believe it was 2021 when they said, “We’re not making the progress that we need to. So what’s different and, or what can we do differently?” And that same group, the IDGs, my understanding is that the IDGs developed out of that. Again, that was the idea that in order to change structures and behaviours, we have to work at the level of mindset first. So that realisation came out, and that IDGs group has developed. I believe there is now sort of an offshoot out of that group of people who have taken responsibility for the website and who are running that summit. And those are sort of a grassroots-led organisation. I have found a lot of, I have found groups on LinkedIn who are working with the IDGs just through, like, Googling them. So if you’re into that, you might want to check that out. But that’s the short history. Great question.

Other questions? I’m going to look in the website. I see a great question. “This was very extroverted. I appreciate that.” Yes, that’s exactly why I’m going to go hide in a dark room for three hours afterwards because I too am an introvert. There’s a self-paced course that I designed with One Higher Ed. Niya just put it in the chat. If you’re not a member of One Higher Ed, they do a 10-day free trial, and it’s the CAP, Climate Action Pedagogy, Foundation course. And it’s a, Niya, I think this is the right term. We consider it a micro-course. So the idea is that you can complete it in a pretty brief amount of time. And I go into the accessibility, emergence strategy, and learning experience design. And there’s also an online community there, which is asynchronous, which is a little bit more introvert friendly. So that’s a great question.

Okay, I’m looking in the chat for other questions. Yeah, and if you need to drop off, you don’t need my permission. Go forth and do wonderful things. Laura, “I’m facilitating a faculty learning community on environmental justice and climate action pedagogy. Totally inspired by Karen.” Yes, all jobs are climate jobs. Small is all. Wonderful. “It was very interesting. I’ll name and claim it as you say. Thank you very much.” We’ve got folks sharing contact info in the chat. “Do you have any academic journal article links to the IDGs?” Not off the top of my head, but let’s write some. “I’m creating an ecological dance pedagogy.” Oh my gosh. Stephanie, that’s amazing. I love that. That’s so exciting. Maybe there’s people here who have some resources for you or have some ideas. I would post on social. I would definitely check out the IDG website, including and maybe get to the summit if you can. Maybe your institution will give you a little support for that.

“Folks might want to check if they have an institutional membership.” Yes, so One Higher Ed, many institutions have an institutional membership, so you could do the course for free, so that would be a great opportunity. “Thank you, and goodnight from Finland.” Yay. Heather signed up individually at One Higher Ed. And if you all want to raise your hand, I am paying attention. I don’t see any hands raised, so that’s, I’m looking at the chat. “I developed a reconciliation leadership programme for the UN that is based on the Hopi prophecy.” Wonderful. “I’m sharing what I learned with the AAMC group.” Oh, that’s interesting. “That works on climate action in medical education.” Wonderful.

So I hope that you all are feeling as excited and as inspired as me. One of the things that happens when we do these things in these groups is that you get to see that. You might say, “Oh, is changing my course announcement that big of a deal? Or is changing this one section of my course that big of a deal?” But there’s 50 other people in the room who are doing that and 50 more who are watching the recording who are doing that. And then that builds and builds, and we’re doing some really good stuff.

Oh, yes, Stephanie, you’re getting some ideas already. Okay. More resources. Ananda is sharing another resource for another amazing project that they’re working on. Jean Pierre will be sharing this with my Canadian First Nation students. I’m so excited. “Showing how historically they…” Yes. I was remiss in not repeating this and saying this, the IDGs are not new. Certainly many tribal and indigenous communities have been living through and with those. These are sort of newly stated, but they are not new. So Jean Pierre, I’m glad that was helpful for you, and I appreciate you reminding me of that. Wonderful.

“I’m in the process of bringing Dr. Ramanathan’s Bending the Curve programme to Clovis Community College. Already getting some buy-in from faculty members.” So yeah, remember this, remember all of the things that you all have shared in the chat that you are doing in the challenging times, which are here and will continue. And it’s one of the ways that I take care of myself, one of my Inner Development Goals is to find my people and to find the helpers. It’s very easy to become overwhelmed and focused on what’s not being done. And it is one of my practices to be very intentional about refocusing on what is being done. There are millions of people working to turn this around. There are millions of people, smart, caring, creative, working on the climate emergency. So we are but a small piece of that. But there’s a lot of reasons that I find to be hopeful, but it takes, takes some effort, some days more than others.

Okay, other questions that people have? I can hang for five minutes. I love that you’re all just sharing the good work that you’re already doing. That’s like each one is. Have you heard of glimmers? Glimmers are, many people have heard of triggers, which are things that sort of bring us into a sort of negative emotional space. Glimmers are things that we look through throughout the day that bring us into a positive emotional space. And I see you all are sprinkling lots of glimmers in the chat, so thank you.

“I teach disaster management. Every topic has an explicit or implicit climate action component. We’ll need to work more on the IDGs.” Yeah, because sometimes we can get stuck at surface level. IDGs are really digging at roots and trying to shift mindsets. Remember, the sort of the reasoning behind this is, mindsets will help us change structures and behaviours. If we try to start at those levels without working at the level of mindset, that is the sort of theory here that that’s why we’re stuck in certain ways. So we’re working at the level of mindset change.

Oh, thank you all. Thank you all. Thank you all. We’ve got some wild pedagogies. Adding it to my list. Thank you all. I see new faces. I see familiar faces. You are all so appreciated, and why I popped out of bed at 4:59 AM this morning. So excited to learn with you all, and that’s also why I’ll be in bed at 7:30 this evening.

Okay, I think I’m going to wrap us. Thank you, Niya and Dasha. If folks have questions, you can find me on my website. We will be sending out the recording. Any final thoughts, pop them in the chat. Goodnight, Ananda, thanks for coming. Thanks for being here so late. Wonderful to meet you. Stay in touch. Come to the Climate Circle, folks. I shared that earlier. And you can find that on the Climate Action Pedagogy website. We’ll be hanging out for a half hour every month just to sort of shoot the breeze about climate action work.

Okay, I’m going to leave us. Niya, can you, I think you’re the host, so if you leave us, that will turn us off.