Climate + Change:
What to Expect and How to Meaningfully Respond to the Defining Crisis of Our Time
with Dr. Heather Short
Next Cohort: February 7th - March 18th, 2024
Course Description
This cohorted course and group exploration is an invitation for adults to face facts they know they can’t ignore – but to do it together and with the guidance of an experienced and especially sensitive climate educator who demystifies the science, takes a sobering tour of the projections, makes space for the feelings of grief and paralysis that often arise, and then offers clear, actionable, and meaningful steps that can be taken now to avert the worst outcomes and give today’s youth and future generations a fighting chance.
It aims to illuminate the dark cloud in our minds called climate breakdown, by equipping learners with the scientific knowledge, emotional clarity, and practical know-how to contribute to timely transformative systemic change in all aspects of society.
Learning Outcomes
Upon completion of this course, participants will be able to:
Articulate the basics of climate science and explain how the present climate emergency is human-caused, and still human-mitigatable.
Understand what psychological barriers to action they may have been using to cope with the feelings that the climate emergency brings up, and how to process and overcome them.
Explain the role of inequality, colonialism, and our present global economic system in perpetuating the climate emergency.
Combine and transform the new knowledge into personal agency and collection action.
Enrollment by Donation
After careful consideration, we are offering this course free of charge. We still ask that you first complete an application so that we can ensure these (limited) seats are given to those who are willing to commit to — and would most benefit from — six weeks of climate education.
Instead of a traditional payment structure, we invite participants who have the means to do so - and/or benefited significantly from the actions and systems that contributed most to the climate crisis — to donate, at the end of the course — the amount they think appropriate and commensurate with the value they received. Such donations will support our ability to continue offering EcoGather educational opportunities - including Climate + Change and related programs.
If it helps you to gauge your donation, please know that we used to charge $199 per person for a very similar course.
As you reflect on your own ability to support this work, consider the degree to which you, your ancestors, and others in your culture and homeplace may have disproportionately benefited from the very activities that accelerate climate change.
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… you might even frame a more substantial donation as a small-but-meaningful act of reparation for the colonial extraction that has caused both global wealth disparities and the climate crisis, and that continues to disproportionately impact people and ecosystems of the Global South.
EcoGather makes robust efforts to engage learners from disproportionately impacted and double exposed regions of the world in EcoGather courses without any financial investment on their part. -
Please know that we welcome you and your perspectives to our course regardless of what, if anything you can afford to donate. If you have benefitted minimally from high-emissions activities and their economic spoils — or largely been harmed by the same — we recognized that any financial contribution may present a barrier to your enrollment and participation. Even a single dollar donation is enough to express your commitment. And if that is still a barrier — as it absolutely is in many parts of the world — contact us at ecogather@sterlingcollege.edu.
We are committed to advancing climate & economic justice with these courses whenever we have the resources to do so.
Course Participants
This course is for adults who want to establish or deepen their climate literacy, prepare to take meaningful action, and support young people. Those who:
- feel sad, anxious, helpless, or overwhelmed about climate change;
- want to ‘do something’ about the climate emergency, but don’t know where to begin;
- want to equip themselves for conversations about climate with deniers or delayers; and/or
- yearn to organize or participate in meaningful action on the climate emergency.
Course Format
This course will include pre-recorded lectures, weekly reading assignments, and an online discussion forum that will help participants understand and apply the concepts discussed. There will also be opportunities for discussion and feedback via a weekly live virtual session so that participants can learn from each other and gain a better understanding of the content.
Language of Instruction
The learning materials in this course, including readings, pre-recorded video, live sessions, audio and discussions, are in English.
FAQs
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Six (6) weeks.
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Although participation in the course is free, there is a requirement to apply. It is important to note that applications are required..
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Yes. There will be one live virtual session each week. These session last for 1 -2hrs.
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No. The course is completed entirely online.
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Yes. If you are taking online courses at via EcoGather, you will need to meet certain minimal technology requirements to access course materials and participate in the courses. At minimum a computer or mobile device is required, a stable internet connection, the Zoom app, and a Two-factor authentication app.
Unfortunately, we do not have the budget to provide devices to interested learners.
Meet Dr. Heather Short
Heather Short holds a PhD in Earth Sciences, and has been teaching college and university students geology and Earth systems science for 25 years, focusing on the present climate crisis for the last 15. She designed and taught the first Earth systems courses in the Quebec College system, guiding learners from climate science basics, through climate psychology, to the necessity of urgent collective action. In her spare time, Dr. Short advocates for transformative systemic change in all aspects of society. She grew up in Bristol, Vermont.