Experiential Education Climate Change Curriculum

  

   For my culminating action and communication project I worked with the non profit organization  Sailing Ships Maine to create a climate change experiential education curriculum. The class will be taught to high school students on board the schooner Harvey Gamage. The programs will be about two months long and take place on the East Coast of the US with 20 students on board. This fully accredited semester, students will receive up to 15 high school credits from Falmouth High School. Having worked on the schooner for about a year and a half, I had a solid connection and was able to get the curriculum implemented into their semester programs.  

    The curriculum frames the key concepts of climate change including greenhouse gases, positive and negative feedback loops, fossil fuels, etc. Being out on the ocean, I wanted to focus especially on sea level rise and ocean acidification, so these two concepts are a large focus of the curriculum. In addition to climate change, students will also be taking literature, history, and nautical science. Each class will meet twice a week, wind, weather, and tide depending. In addition to the provided material, the students will have access to the book Dire Predications: Understanding Climate Change. This book will act as an additional reference and guide for the class as it frames many concepts in an accessible manner.     

    In the tall ship community, the educators are often sailors who have some background in their chosen subject. So the goal of the provided curriculum is not tell someone how to teach, but to give them the material and resources they need in order to teach a class that pertains to their strengths. I will be the first person to teach this class, so I will be able to determine what works and what does not . I will be providing lesson plans and outlines that I implemented for classes as examples for future educators. However, you never know where you will be teaching class, or if you will have class at all some days. Teaching during a storm on a ship, is a terrible idea, dolphins are very distracting, and opportunities to have hands on experiences on shore often arrive when we do and are planned on the spot. Having lessons plans laid out before hand, is not a good use of time or resources. You must be able to think on your feet and be ready to teach at the drop of a hat. The material was gathered from my prior knowledge from classes taken at Eckerd College, and other resources including NOAA and Dire Predictions: Understanding Climate Change. The resources are organized into a GoogleDrive folder which will be downloaded onto the ships computer for use while at sea.

    There are some challenges when teaching on board a traditional wooden ship. First, is seasickness. Usually, the students spend the first week with nausea, vomiting, exhaustion, and nerves. Class does not go very well and is usually replaced with sitting deck focusing on the horizon, and trying to keep your lunch down. Second, there is no "classroom" on board. We make due with deck space and a communal sitting area called the salon to teach classes. Additionally, sailing is hard work! Everyone is sleep deprived, the students are usually very far outside their comfort zone, and it is difficult to stay motivated. Exams, homework, and other common classroom activities are not realistic. Classes are discussion based and rarely have assignments outside of the given class time, and will be occasionally lead by the students.

    To conclude the semester, each student will submit a final project to be submitted to the Bow Seat Ocean Awareness Contest. An international middle school and high school contest focused on ocean awareness and climate change. The students will be given a prompt by the organization and can work individually or in groups. The categories are art, film, performance art, poetry, creative writing, and interactive media. On board the students have access to GoPros and will be provided with additional resources as needed to complete their project. 

    Why teach climate change on board a wooden ship? To be able to sail a ship, you must have an understanding of the ocean, doing so you develop a very appreciative and intimate perspective of it. This removes the of the Five Psychological Barriers to Climate Actions described by Stonknes in What We Think About When We Try Not to Think About Global Warming- distance. Climate change effects the ocean drastically and it is one of the most prominent determining factors of climate change. Even if climate action is taken, it will always be a factor in the future. Teaching future generations to understand and be able to competently communicate climate change will hopefully remove some of the denial that is currently present today, and will set future generations up for success.  

References

Mann, M., Kump, L. Dire Predictions: Understanding Climate Change. Penguin Random                           ldkfjlsdkfj House, 2015.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: Climate. www.noaa.gov/climate. 

Stonkes, P.E. What We Think About When We Try Not To Think About Global Warming. Chelsea Green ldkfjlsdkfjPublishing, 2015.