Every day is filled with encounters, when we come upon, meet, or are challenged by something that affects us or is close to our heart in some way. Many of these encounters are unnoticed, or are filtered out in one way or another, but they do happen in a particular place, at a particular time. You can reflect on your experiences as an educator or professional in your own field to get some hints as to what sorts of worldly calls have caught your interest and curiosity or sparked your imagination. Open yourself to be struck by something insider your home or your work environment. In considering a specific encounter, think about what kinds of people, interactions, community dynamics, economic situations, cultural negotiations that it entails.
For instance, an encounter could take place in or through any of the following:
- A scene (from a movie or novel)
- A place (your classroom or school, grocery store, food bank, art gallery or virtual space such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram…)
- A text (from a newspaper article, a tourism guide, a flyer)
- An image (advertisement, photograph, painting)
- An event (something that may have happened in a community or music festival, a political event, social gathering, party)
You can have had this encounter anywhere in the world.
The more specific and narrowly framed the encounter that you choose, the more manageable this challenge will be (for example, instead of choosing Facebook in general, it would be more effective to choose a particular Facebook campaign, or post); nonetheless, the trick will be to remain concise and focused. If you choose an encounter that you are not directly a part of (that is, when you are more of an observer than a participant), your task will be more difficult as you are required, in any case, to situate yourself vis-à-vis the encounter (e.g., “my sense is that”, or “what I saw was”).
Task:
- Think and list the different encounters you have had with climate change (directly or indirectly.
- Choose one of the encounters you have listed. Since we are all immersed in a myriad of networks (social network, grocery store, online, on the street) your inquiry will begin with choosing only one encounter.
- Collage activity – Using the collage art form, you will tell/depict the story of your encounter. (Choose: physical collage or digital (https://www.canva.com/)
- Share your encounter with a partner through your collage, ask questions, ask for details and provide responses.
- Do you notice any common things coming up in your discussion with your partner? Do a large group sharing of what common themes come up for your group when it comes to climate change.