Human/Nature: An Exploration of Place, Story, and Climate Futurism

This grant will support a combined format, virtual and in-person, 3-week NEH summer institute for 25 secondary English teachers from across the country. The institute will be held for 2 weeks on SSU's campus and includes field trips to various locations in Northern California. Participants will learn alongside literary scholars, teacher-artists, naturalists, and media literacy scholars. The institute will guide participants through an in-depth inquiry into the human/nature dichotomy and connections through climate futurism. Climate futurism is defined here as storytelling that uses climate science as a catalyst to imagine possible climate futures. Storytelling is essential to the humanities, but it also bridges other disciplines like science, helping people imagine alternative outcomes to complex problems. The institute starts with Octavia E. Butler's Parable of the Sower and includes young adult literature in the genre of "cli-fi," or climate science fiction. Literary study and field experiences lead to the development of curricular "Action Plans" for teachers' use in their own classrooms.