麻豆官网

Clara Boland didn鈥檛 fully appreciate coal鈥檚 role in her life until she did some digging. That meant going to Paonia, a small town in Western Colorado, which has mined coal for more than a century.

Boland鈥檚 aim was to create a short documentary film for a course on conveying climate science through film. Her journey began in 麻豆官网, where young people called coal 鈥測esterday鈥檚 fuel,鈥� dirty and toxic.

Longtime Paonia residents like Alan Austin said it鈥檚 easy to 鈥渟it in our ivory towers and look down at coal miners.鈥� Actual life in a coal town is not, he said, so black and white.

As Boyd Boland, Clara鈥檚 father, said on screen, coal fuels the American dream, providing good-paying jobs. 鈥淲ithout coal, I don鈥檛 think this community could survive.鈥�

Boland acknowledges that burning coal produces greenhouse gases and harmful airborne particulates. 鈥淏ut when you鈥檙e here, those problems are somebody else鈥檚 problems.鈥�

In the film鈥檚 final scene, Clara Boland strides across a small mountain of coal. She says that the North Fork Valley鈥� a tightknit area that feels more distinctly western than the resort towns on the other side of McClure Pass鈥攏eeds a 鈥渟hift in thinking,鈥� and that Paonians can create safe, new jobs in clean energy.

It is early February. Boland and her professor, Rebecca Safran of ecology and evolutionary biology, are guest speakers in a new course at the 麻豆官网 that aims to explore innovative, creative and effective ways to convey climate-change science and its implications.

That course, called 鈥淚nside the Greenhouse,鈥� takes Safran鈥檚 concept and runs with it. It is team-taught by two faculty members: Beth Osnes and Maxwell Boykoff from theatre and dance and environmental studies, respectively.

These disciplines seldom rub elbows. But in this course, cross-disciplinary teaching鈥攃ollaboratively analyzing issues from the disparate lenses of social science, natural science and the arts and humanities鈥攊s intentional.

The course is an experiment, one of several interdisciplinary courses supported by the Gordon Gamm Fund, named after local philanthropist Gordon Gamm.

Boland is addressing the class that hopes to learn from her, as she herself has learned. In retrospect, she says, her film鈥檚 conclusion might be a stretch. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think a community like Paonia can easily make such a huge shift.鈥�

As Professor Safran noted, it is a challenge to convey scientific information on climate change in a way that 鈥渄oesn鈥檛 just spell depression.鈥� Osnes and Boykoff see that challenge and, have, from their respective disciplines, addressed it.

Disciplinary cross-pollination

Todd Gleeson, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, explains that cross-disciplinary interaction of two faculty members 鈥渃reates opportunities for new scholarship, research, and creative works that may not happen in the absence of these courses.鈥�

That description fits here: Osnes and Boykoff each has a distinguished academic record. Together, they make a synergistic powerhouse.

Besides teaching and researching in the Department of Theatre and Dance, Osnes, a former Fulbright Scholar, has a lead role in an award-winning 2011 documentary called 鈥淢other: Caring For 7 Billion,鈥� which features the contrasting lives of Osnes and an Ethiopian woman and which effectively frames the population explosion with these individual narratives.

Boykoff is the author of a 2011 book鈥斺�淲ho Speaks for the Climate?鈥濃�攚hich has been called a 鈥減ath-breaking鈥� analysis of mass-media representations of climate science.听 He is a fellow in CU鈥檚 Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences and a senior visiting research associate in the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford. His research has been cited in Science, Nature, The New York Times, CNN and Columbia Journalism Review.

Coached by these two experts, small groups of students enrolled in 鈥淚nside the Greenhouse鈥� will create two 鈥渃ompositions鈥濃�攐riginal expressions ranging from 鈥渃horeopoems鈥� to a video montage.

After creating both compositions, each group will choose one to revise and polish, drawing from feedback from the class, the professors and an outside expert panel.

Then collectively, the whole class will create a 30- to 40-minute program鈥攁lso called 鈥淚nside the Greenhouse鈥濃�攚hich will include work generated by students and will feature excerpts from an on-stage interview with a 鈥渉igh-profile public figure who has been wrestling with questions regarding climate science, policy and the public.鈥�

Brainstorming communication

That鈥檚 all yet to come. But on this day in class, the students observe Clara Boland鈥檚 work before describing their concepts for their own compositions.

One group, for instance, assembles at the front of the room and describes its concept: following a person who wastes energy all day. Then, the students say, the scenes will rewind, and the protagonist will make different choices鈥攖o conserve energy. At the end, there might be a message that each person can make easy, meaningful choices.

Perhaps the pivotal scene would involve a 鈥渄rop-dead gorgeous guy鈥� who鈥檚 conducting survey about energy usage. A dreamy dude, Osnes suggest, could motivate behavioral change.

Another group of students proposes a variation on a series of commercials from Liberty Mutual, an insurance company. The original commercials depict a series of selfless acts that appear contagious. The tagline is 鈥淩esponsibility. What鈥檚 your policy?鈥�

Boykoff, an expert in climate communication, says being overly earnest could be a 鈥減itfall鈥� that could keep the message from being effectively heard.

Osnes, whose expertise is communication from the stage, concurs: 鈥淚f using clean energy doesn鈥檛 look like fun, that won鈥檛 work. Showing somebody freezing in a yurt won鈥檛 work.鈥�

Before the class departs, Osnes challenges the students to commit fully to the project. 鈥淟et鈥檚 do this for real,鈥� she says, emphasizing the point with a quotation from the poet Mary Oliver:

鈥淲hat is it you鈥檙e going to do with your one wild and precious life?鈥�

Behind the scenes

Gordon Gamm suggests that such a learning environment fosters critical-thinking skills and enables academic disciplines to be enriched by perspectives from other disciplines.

Gamm is an attorney, but has 鈥渋nterests in a number of disciplines.鈥� He was a philosophy major and taught high school honors math before becoming a lawyer.

He was in a Ph.D. program in communication science and linguistics after receiving his law degree. In law school, he studied comparative law鈥攈ow legal systems in nations throughout the world resolve civil disputes.

In an interview, he highlights discipline myopia with the example of Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman who, while testifying before Congress, acknowledged that he had been wrong in subscribing to libertarianism for his entire听economic career.听The evidence of the 2008 economic collapse convinced him that markets are not self-correcting, that regulatory oversight is necessary.

Greenspan exemplifies the perils of discipline myopia, Gamm says.听 Similarly, he offers examples in several academic disciplines of their being stymied by artificial boundaries. Thus, 鈥渂ringing people in from another discipline is a refreshing way of revitalizing them.鈥�

Gamm is eager to see the results of the interdisciplinary program. Meantime, he says the Osnes/Boykoff course seems a fitting way to highlight a productive intersection of theatre and environmental science.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a good marriage.鈥�

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