Learning about Location in a Climate of Change

Public Pedagogies Institute Online Seminar Series, Thursday 1 October 2020.

The 2019/2020 bushfire disaster and COVID-19 have been instigators of radical changes to place and the ways we relate to location. In this period of significant ecological and social stress, these two events have highlighted the fragile nature of local environments and our relationships with them. Many of us are experiencing built and natural spaces in new ways and experiencing the blurring of boundaries between public and private.

As a collective of climate change educators, we wondered:

• What has changed and what has remained in how we experience location over the last year?
• How have COVID and the Bushfires impacted our experiences of place?
• How and in what ways are we learning about location and connection to natural environments through these events?

Our collective storylines

Below are the collective storylines created by participants during the Seminar.

Bron’s group: a padlet

Gen’s group: poetry

Human spirit

Thirsty
Thirsty for new possibilities
New elders to guide our way

Surrender to unmanicured dynamics
Out of our control
Land(E)scaping
Becoming, reclamation, resilience

The Human spirit
The Cactus spirit
The Virus spirit
The Earth spirit

No borders
One spirit

I noticed the absence of aircraft in the sky
Thirsty for normalcy but for somethings that are new
Waters are calm but impending -feeling of something will happen
Precariousness
Notion of human control is drastically changed

“It is a serious thing just to be alive on this fresh morning in this broken world” – Mary Oliver

Meg’s group: poetry

A storyline

A courtyard tree
A bunch of lemons
A miniature pony
A camping ground
A roughened barked tree
Ducks and masks
Coping strategies
Dissonance between Fahrenheit and Celsius
Dissonance between human and natural and human world

The natural world is still doing its great big thing
The fact that we are more contained means we may have moved back to a different rhythm
Changing scale, changing sense of time
We notice it more

Movement and connecting to space
Quietness of tone,

Reflective, taking time to pause, look and appreciate,

The current capacity of nature to continually regenerate?

Peta’s group: Collage

Collage of pictures to illustrate temporality with word phrases to help speak to the images and highlight our theme of noticing.

Because we are here…connecting inside outside.
Connecting with life, the cycle of life.

This place was once burnt by grassfires but now it’s grown back

Questions of life, death, sickness, & strength

The continuum of time – past, present and future.

Receding glaciers in Iceland – A constant and a change

Beauty that reminds me of home

This is a timeless desert in Namibia – out of time – ever changing yet never changing

Bees collecting pollen and nectar in Spring like they do every year at this time

The dead and the exchange of matter between stateds

The seminar was created and presented by CCEN members Bronwyn Sutton, Gen Blades, Meg Upton and Peta White for the Public Pedagogies Institute Online Seminar Series Public Pedagogies of Location.

For more information about the seminar series or the Public Pedagogies Institute, please visit the PPI website.

For more information about the seminar please contact CCEN.