Great Turning Conference Workshop descriptions

Thursday, October 18, 10 am -12 noon

Environmental Justice Strand
1) Making Environmental Education Programs Carbon Neutral – Daniel Greenberg, Living Routes.  Global climate change is likely the greatest environmental threat of the 21st century. Come learn how measuring, minimizing and offsetting greenhouse gas emissions from environmental educational programs can support regional ecosystems and economies, educate students around their ecological impacts and, most importantly, help heal our planet.

2) Re-Imaging Relations with the Earth: Lessons from Zambia’s Copper Mining Communities – Elizabeth Parsons, University of Kwanzaa-Natal.  Primarily for civil society members, this workshop contrasts some traditional African cultural and spiritual understandings with assumptions dominant in much free market thinking.  Using the case of Zambia’s privatized mining environment, we will re-imagine humanity and the earth by contrasting copper-as-commodity ideas with notions of copper as something much more.

Environmental Leadership Strand
1) Self-reflection, Courage, and Environmental Leadership – Sharlene Cochrane, Lesley University.  Learn about reflecting on our experience of leadership when we stand in the gap between what we see as possible and what we experience as our current reality.  This workshop is based on the work of Parker Palmer’s book A Hidden Wholeness. Standing in the “tragic gap” allows us to take on leadership from an authentic, courageous and non-violent place.

2) Places of Enchantment: Preserving the Future with Memories of the Past – Madeline Bachner, Audubon Expedition Institute.  In what ways does the feeling wilderness evokes in the human spirit elicit an ethic to sustain timeless wild spaces?  Inspired by thoughts from conservationists Mardy and Olaus Murie, explore, through writing, drawing and dialogue, the ways in which our natural “places of enchantment” influence our work and the future of conservation.

Great Turning Strand
1) Earth Wisdom: Ecological Art Making as an Agent for Change – Tatum Miller, Audubon Expedition Institute.  This workshop will focus on the expression of participants’ creative vision and will utilize the art form to engage in an active dialogue with greater sources of wisdom. The process will serve to open lines of authentic communication and will support movement through areas of impasse toward healing and action.

2) Redefining the Environmental Crisis -- John Francis, Planetwalk. Using silence, music, art and walking, John Francis will explore the current environmental crisis as a reflection of social and economic inequity. Reflecting on his own journey as the Planetwalker, Dr. Francis contends that our connection to the earth as well as each other is at the heart of the environmental crisis.

2) Edu-Game for Globalization and Democracy: A Catalyst for Understanding Diversity of Governance and the Means to Reclaim Political Power through Citizen Participation --  Alan Furth and Kara McCrimmon, Cobscook Community Learning Center and Chris Spicer, Institute for Peoples Education and Action and North American representative of the Association for World Education.  Learn about the Association for World Education (AWE) which links local education initiatives around the world to strengthen democratic practice and life sustaining communities.  Experience the Edu-Game, a catalyst for dialogue, interpretation, understanding and engagement at local, regional, national and global levels. Learn how you can participate in this global network.

Ecological Teaching and Learning Strand
1) Nature-based Counseling as a Format for Teaching – Maya Kasper, University of Southern Maine.  There are several formats for teaching nature based counseling and eco-psychology to individuals and groups in western society. The presenter will offer a format she uses to teach eco-psychology and nature based counseling integrating theory and practice while providing individuals the opportunity to explore their own relationship with Gaia. She will also share a nature-based counseling intake form she designed which can be used with groups and individuals in various settings.

2) Wild Plants and Wild Craft: the Important Place of Local Natural Resources in Education – Teachers and Students of the Vermont Semester, Kroka Expeditions.  This workshop looks at wild-gathering as an essential tool for understanding local ecology and creating pathways toward sustainability.  We focus on the use of wild plants for food and local trees for baskets.  In addition to practical skills we discuss how engaging with resources helps teach concepts like:  understanding ecological limits, imposing human limits, ecological costs vs. monetary costs, and regional sustainability. 

3) Transformative Education: Teaching Sustainability from the Outside In – Karin Wittmann, Hank Colletto, and Jasper Montgomery, Audubon Expedition Institute at Lesley University.  The Audubon Expedition Institute’s experiential educational model fosters ecological awareness and personal transformation by engaging the whole person.  Using a knowledge, action, reflection learning cycle students connect deeply to each other and the planet. Explore with us how this transformative learning model leads to behavioral change.

Thursday, October 18, 1:45 pm - 3:45 pm

Environmental Justice Strand
1) Being the Change: A Systems Approach Towards Sustainable Lifestyle – Nelson Lebo, Pedal Power Farm.  How can decisions North Americans make take into account environmental and social ripple effects throughout the world? This workshop explains holistic decision-making tools  - Sustainability Triangle, “Waste Equals Food,” Fair Trade, Living Wage, and Embodied Energy – and offers a case study of their application on a small homestead in rural New Hampshire. 

2) Local Living Economies as an Antidote to the Suicide Economy – Daniel Finn, Pioneer Valley Business Alliance for Local Living Economies.  As our economy brings us toward the brink of ecological and societal collapse and so many of us feel disconnected from the planet, each other, and even ourselves it is imperative that we create economies that are connected to community and place.  This workshop will examine how the creation of thousands of local, living economies across the earth maybe just what we need to avoid the worst of what is to come. 

Environmental Leadership Strand
1) Leading From Within to Collaborate with Others – Peter Lane and Mary Jo Kaplan, Institute for Conservation Leadership.  Leadership requires personal commitment and skill to engage, partner and create within diverse communities.  By increasing one’s self-awareness and one’s ability to interact from a centered personal place, we open ourselves to a fuller range of possibilities.  Meaningful interpersonal connections provide a foundation to explore new insights, new relationships and new achievements.  This workshop, based on the Institute for Conservation Leadership’s five-month “Leading From Within” program, will increase participants’ leadership awareness and introduce practical tools for having greater impact in collaborative contexts.

Great Turning Strand
1) Rewriting Our Cultural Story Through an Exploration of Personal Heritage – Kate Field, Paige Doughty, and Miles Wheat, Audubon Expedition Institute.  This workshop explores the burden of cultural guilt and isolation that many carry as a result of coming from a culture founded upon systems destructive to life.  Using multiple intelligences and creative expression we explore the power each of us has to write new cultural stories.  

2) Art as a Tool for Social Transformation – Michael Schwartz and Jodi Netzer, Artists.  This lively hands-on presentation examines the history and future of community arts and cultural development. Experience how creativity can transcend differences and build community by applying MI theories to arts education and organizing. Identify your personal creative capacity and gain skills that can be employed in your community.

Ecological Teaching and Learning Strand
1) Embodying Systems Thinking: Practicing the Language of Connection, Reflection, and Process – Coleen O’Connell, Audubon Expedition Institute at Lesley University.  As part of the Great Turning, we need to re-train our brains to talk and act in ways that reflect the systems that nurture both our planet and our lives.  Participants will be outdoors and engaged in improvisational enactment of various systems using the language of ecological principles and systems criteria. 

2) Creating Significant Learning Experiences: Designing Education for Deep Change – Larkspur Morton, Neal Taylor and Angie Moline, Audubon Expedition Institute at Lesley University.  We frequently have unstated hopes for what our students learn and how they will change. By making our dreams explicit we begin to create educational experiences to achieve them. This workshop will explore how to broaden our thinking about significant learning and introduce a method for designing successful learning experiences.

Friday, October 19, 10 am – 12 noon

Environmental Justice Strand
1) A Truly Deep Ecological Perspective: Links Between Race, Class and Ecological Identity – Bekah Greenwald, Apeiron Institute for Environmental Living.  What becomes possible when we bring a deep ecological perspective into the classroom? Using a framework to foster learning rooted in an experiential understanding that the well-being of earth’s eco-systems is intertwined with our own and vice versa, we can enter any classroom, meet state standards and guidelines, equalize the playing field, and provide lasting education that leads to action for all.

Environmental Leadership Strand
1) Our Climate Ourselves: Tapping the Climate Change Leadership Capacity of All People – Phil Rice, Sustainability Institute.  The Our Climate Ourselves program serves people who are convinced that climate change is a real and serious issue, but who feel poorly equipped to effectively convey this concern to others.  Learn how to become more effective at painting a picture of a world that will be a much better, safer, and more beautiful place once we have addressed climate change. 

2) Facilitative Leadership for Social Change – Daryl Campbell and Curtis Ogden, Interaction Institute for Social Change.  In this workshop, we will actively explore some of the concepts, frameworks, and tools of a collaborative approach to leadership and organizational/community stewardship aimed at building and achieving shared goals.  Specifically, participants will learn to balance change efforts across various dimensions of success and encourage innovation and ownership among stakeholders.

3) Refocusing from Individualized Learning to Classroom Community Empowerment -- Elaine Abusharbain, Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville.  Refocusing teaching from the individual learner to a classroom community environment allows students to develop their leadership skills and attitudes together using a social-constructivist framework.  Nurturing community elements such as trust, empathy, common values, altruism, information, networking, organization and other key factors expands students’ capacity for environmental leadership

Great Turning Strand
1) Signs of the Great Turning – Michael Rice and Colleagues, Interhelp National Council.  This workshop explores signs of the Great Turning in the lives of individual participants: work at the personal (heart) level alongside rational analysis, using experiential exercises from Joanna Macy’s Work That Reconnects.  We will build trust and bring social cohesion through group experience of nature, guided meditation, and mutual support. 

2) Earth Alive: Sustainability and the Sacred – Bill Pfeiffer, Sacred Earth Network.  Join a joyful re-connection with Earth and expand your ability to envision creative solutions to our present dilemma. We will use poetry, nature awareness, mindfulness practice, drum journeying, and imagination. Participants will gain fresh insights into how personal consciousness is interwoven into larger Gaian intelligence, and how the quality of this connection is critical to the unfolding of a positive collective future.

3) Shifting the Ground of Masculinity, Leadership, and the Great Turning: Creative Explorations in Gender and Leadership -- brad davis and Arin Trook, Audubon Expedition Institute at Lesley University.  This workshop explores masculinity and leadership in the context of the ecological and social evolution of the Great Turning. Traditional roles of patriarchal leadership often arise and limit our work in social organizations, personal interactions, even in our relationship to the Earth itself. We are calling on both men and women to help us in the redefinition of healthy male roles as leaders, educators, and activists. We will work to redefine the masculine through creative arts, performance and intimate dialogue.

Ecological Teaching and Learning Strand
1) Subliminal Spirituality in Environmental Science Teaching – Marc Lapin, Middlebury College.  Many of us work within traditional education structures that are not conducive to teaching holistic perspectives. The goal of this workshop is to explore ways that educators can plant seeds to lead students to contemplate body and spirit ways of knowing which become incorporated in personal understanding of the ecosphere. 

2) Educational Foundations for the Great Turning: Intimacy, the Universe Story, and a New Human Destiny – Paul Morgan, West Chester University of Pennsylvania.  What principles and practices should guide educators who want to support the Great Turning?  See, hear, experience, and discuss answers designed to catalyze worldview transition.  We will experience outdoor contemplative event mapping, a multi-media telling of our universe story, and imagine ways to enact a new human destiny.

3) Finding Andromeda: Folk Schools and Radical Social Change -- Alan Furth, Kara McCrimmon, and Kevin Thompson, Cobscook Community Learning Center,  Chris Spicer, Institute for Peoples Education and Action and North American representative of the Association for World Education, and Vicky Eiben, Fielding Graduate University. Explore contemporary applications of Folk School pedagogy and practice through conversation, storytelling and collective inquiry.  Examine the genesis of the Cobscook Community Learning Center, an 8-year old initiative located on the Maine/Canada/ Passamaquoddy border.  Community learning centers around the world have the potential to lay the foundation for learning systems of the future.

Friday October 19, 1:45 pm - 3:45 pm

Environmental Justice Strand
1) Cultural Resistance: Political Art for Education – Worker Bees from the Beehive Design Collective.  Eco-centric images from the Beehive Collective will be the focus of a participatory discussion about cultural work as a strategy for political organizing and education. The Bees will facilitate an illustrated narrative of diverse grassroots resistance to industrial development in the Americas and share our experience in making collaboratively designed, cross-cultural tools.  

2) A Walk in Deep Time and Space: A Pilgrimage for Enlightened Environmental Justice – David Morimoto, John Francis, Sarah Holbrook, and Joanne Watson, Lesley University. Participants will reflect upon our deepest evolutionary and ecological connections as a foundation for a philosophy of Enlightened Environmental Justice for all beings. Participants will walk in a silent reflective ‘pilgrimage’ through the forest for one hour along an evolutionary timeline of life and share creative expressions of their insights.

Environmental Leadership Strand
1) Creating Human Environments for Sustainable Outcomes – Michael Van Dyke, Serengeti Enterprises.  Whether in a classroom, worksite, or place of worship, people create an emotional texture in their environment.  This “human environment” shapes each person’s view of the physical world as well as relationships.  Participants will explore how they impact the human environment and how to lead for sustainability of the human spirit. 

Great Turning Strand
1) Reconnect Yourself to Nature: A Path to Transformation – Peter Maniscalco, Renew Community Earth, and Scott Carlin, Long Island University.  Storytelling guides this adventure of rediscovering our ecological identity and ability to reconnect with nature. Framing our lives as tales empowers us – we are each heroes/heroines of our own dramas to reconnect with nature.  By sharing experiences, we can help each other integrate ecological knowledge and reclaim the power of our stories. 

2) Biospheric Family Values: A Foray into Spiritual Ecopsychology -- Tina Fields, New College of CA North Bay Campus for Sustainable Living. Human participants in this workshop will explore avenues for enhancing our spiritual relationship with the more-than-human world in a mutually beneficial way, and realize potentials inherent in this mental paradigm shift from ownership to belonging. Beginning with an indigenous European tale about right relationship with the more-than-human world, this workshop ties together storytelling, ecopsychological insights, participant sharing of lived experiences, and a culminating shamanistic dance.

3) Designing the New (R)evolution: Deep Ecological Design and Systems of Social Justice -- Arin Trook, Audubon Expedition Institute at Lesley University.  This workshop looks at applications of ecological design in social justice systems. Ecological design looks to create new solutions to social and environmental issues through examining the wisdom of four billion years of evolutionary design in living systems. We will explore the core concepts of ecological design and how we can craft healthy schools, businesses, and other primary social structures by modeling them after natural living systems.

Ecological Teaching and Learning Strand
1) Art as an Environmental Education Vehicle – Cynthia Robinson and panel members, Arts Alliance of Northern New Hampshire.  Today’s environmental art (or eco art) improves our relationship with the natural world promoting ecological awareness, positive action, social responsibility, and a sense of place. This panel-based workshop featuring educators and local students will identify, explore, and invite discussion about current models for using the arts to enable environmental education. 

2) Designing and Implementing an Adult Environmental Education Program – Keith Beasley, Massachusetts Port Authority.  This workshop will present an effective approach for engaging adults in environmental learning through the exploration of their concerns and issues.  The approach’s framework includes a needs assessment, methods of engagement, assessing and building knowledge and skills, and wrap-up.  The workshop will include a review of the learning approach, and there will be an opportunity for workshop participants to develop personal skills related to one component of the approach.