Environmental Educators Rise Up, Sit-In, Strike Out! Learning From History to Inspire Climate Action Today

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 3
  In Roundtable Session: Sociopolitical Lens to Climate Change Education and Implications for Action

Abstract

We face increasing need for climate action. What can we do? While most environmental education research focuses upon curricular, pedagogical, policy-based, and philosophical answers to this question, this paper asks about the political power of environmental educators themselves. Specifically, what do historical cases of faculty activism teach us about the interdependent political power educators can leverage for social movements today? Answers to this question draw from a four-year study that using interdependent power as a theoretical frame and a portraiture methodology with oral history and archival research data. For this paper, I share excerpts of the five portraits I created for the study and the lessons these portraits offer for environmental educators interested in activism for climate justice.

Author

• Nora Timmerman, Northern Arizona University