The EnvComm Blog

Happy Easter everyone!

While everyone expected 2022 to be much more positive and stress-free, we learn that we're still in the "Roaring 20ies", challenged by crises, war and risks.

However, "April showers bring May flowers" and at least in the northern hemisphere it's spring - and in the spirit of a "new beginning", we want to introduce our new "newsletter" format for "news from the board". 

As an IECA Educator Fellow it is a pleasure to share my experience teaching climate communications. If you are thinking of developing university coursework focused on climate change communication or climate journalism, I would love to chat with you.

I developed and designed an undergraduate climate change communication course at DePaul University, which I first taught for the first time in winter 2018. I most recently taught an Honors Program version of the course in DePaul’s winter term.

As IECA educator fellows, Michaeleen Gallagher and Maggie Siebert wanted to discuss from a practitioner’s perspective projects that are educational in nature, and have resounding impacts on their respective local environments.  Both projects bring research to the public in an applied, active manner, that expose students and community members to environment focused projects and engage the public to become active participants and passionate change makers. 

Case studies have been a popular qualitative research method that provides researchers with “an intensive, holistic description and analysis of a single instance, phenomenon, or social unit” (Merriam, 1998, p. 21). This methodology has been widely used in environmental communication (EC) research (Jarreau, Altinay, & Reynolds, 2015). Using case studies to teach environmental communication can also be an effective pedagogical technique for EC teachers. Case studies demonstrate to students how abstract EC theories and concepts can be used to solve real-life situations and conservation problems. In this blog entry, as part of the IECA Educator Fellow Program, I would like to share my experience of integrating case studies into the EC classroom.

In the Fall of 2019, the IECA board authorized the launch of an “Educator Fellows” program (add hot link to https://theieca.org/resources/educator-fellows-program) to focus attention on the importance of environmental communication (EC) education within our professional organization and in wider communities and contexts.

Five IECA members were named as fellows for 2020-21:

• Michaeleen Gallagher, Director of Education and Environmental Programs, Annenberg Foundation Trust @ Sunnylands
• Jill Hopke, Assistant Professor, Journalism, DePaul University
• Jason Ludden, Teaching Assistant Professor, English, University of Nevada - Reno
• Maggie Siebert, Adjunct Faculty, Community Engaged Learning and Research, University of New Mexico
• Kenneth C. C. Yang, Professor, Communication, University of Texas at El Paso

Over the course of the last year, a sub-committee of the IECA board has been working on a Strategic Plan. Many thanks to the committee members who volunteered their time to develop the IECA’s first strategic plan: Eric Morgan, Tadesse Sahilu, Leonor Solis, Clive Tesar, Anke Wonneberger, Mark Meisner, and Samantha Senda-Cook. As you’ll read in the plan itself: “By drafting a strategic plan, the leadership of the IECA hoped to codify guiding principles that have been a mainstay of our organization since the beginning. Additionally, we wanted to emphasize some goals as higher priorities. For example, goal three encourages us to increase diversity, which reflects broader global calls for justice.

EC Colleagues: I am part of the IECA Educator Fellows initiative, a group that has been tapped to enhance resources for EC educators at the K-12, college/university, and community levels. For more information about the Fellows, see https://theieca.org/resources/educator-fellows-program

I am reaching out with a specific request--help us update and grow the list of syllabi for EC-related undergraduate and graduate courses that is currently posted on the IECA web site under the "resources," "courses" tab. This area is available for members and non-members alike. See https://theieca.org/resources/courses

It is our pleasure to announce the June 2021 location for the Conference on Communication and the Environment (COCE). The IECA Board has selected the University of Tasmania to host the conference in Hobart, on the island of Tasmania, Australia, to take our international organization to the southern hemisphere for the first time! This will bring our conference closer to our Southeast Asian and Oceanian members of the International Environmental Communication Association. The tentative dates of the conference are June 7 – 10, 2021.

Thanks to IECA, I had the opportunity to attend the first week of the Bonn climate change conference (SB50) held from 17 to 27 June. I was interested in experiencing first-hand the move the UNFCCC secretariat is apparently making towards an acceptance of the role that animal agriculture plays in global warming. Though not incorporated in any way in the political talks so far, the impact of food on the climate, and especially of animal-based food, has been acknowledged by the IPCC, the FAO and the UNEP for some time now, besides many papers published by independent researchers and organizations.