BRATTLEBORO — On Dec. 7, the downtown Brattleboro arts organization Epsilon Spires will host a day-long workshop for K-12 educators and community organizers based on the book A People's Curriculum for the Earth: Teaching Climate Change and the Environmental Crisis.
The workshop will be facilitated by the book's author, Bill Bigelow.
Drawing on model lessons from the classroom-tested curriculum outlined in Bigelow's book, the workshop will focus on how to positively influence the next generation of climate stewards, as well as explore advocacy methods for school district resolutions that commit to addressing climate change.
Bigelow is the curriculum editor of Rethinking Schools magazine and co-director of the Zinn Education Project, which for the past decade has worked to provide students with “a more accurate, complex, and engaging understanding of history than is found in traditional textbooks,” according to a news release.
The organization is named for Howard Zinn, the socialist intellectual and political science professor best known for his best-selling revisionist history of America, A People's History of the United States.
“The Zinn Education Project hasn't previously held this workshop anywhere in the state of Vermont, so this is an exciting opportunity to provide our local teachers and activists with the tools they need to make a substantial impact,” said Jamie Mohr, creative director of Epsilon Spires, in a news release.
As the recipient of a master's degree in Sustainable Development from SIT in Brattleboro, Mohr is especially interested in the subject of climate change, which she has also studied in the Arctic context at the University of Oslo.
Participants in the workshop will be given a copy of Bigelow's book, which includes lessons ranging from a mock trial investigating the sources of climate change to a role-play activity introducing students to the voices of real-world farmers, politicians, and CEOs on both sides of the climate debate.