Below, Dr. Christopher Rabe discusses how he and his co-instructors developed the Climate Justice Instructional Toolkit, and how they hope it will be used.
OCW: What level (e.g., introductory undergraduate, advanced undergraduate, graduate) of class did you have in mind when developing the Toolkit?
Christopher Rabe: The Toolkit was designed primarily for undergraduate, introductory courses. However, it could be adapted for advanced high school contexts or potentially used for professional development.
OCW: What kind of educators are best placed to make use of the materials you’re presenting?
Christopher Rabe: These materials would be ideal for instructors who are already teaching courses related to the environment and sustainability and would like to better include issues of environmental or climate justice in their instruction. These materials could also be used in other contexts that are related to issues of climate justice such as global studies, international relations, history, public policy, and even areas such as sociology and anthropology. In addition, we have one module specifically designed for engineering, and we hope to make more discipline-specific modules for STEM areas in future iterations of the Toolkit.
OCW: Any classroom full of students is likely to include at least a few who are skeptical that climate change is really happening, that it’s caused by human activity, or that it constitutes a crisis requiring immediate and forceful action. Likewise, some students may be convinced of the danger posed by climate change but may be resistant to social justice arguments in general. How do the materials in the Toolkit make the case that climate change is real and that it’s a social justice issue?
Christopher Rabe: The Toolkit was not specifically designed to address student skepticism toward climate or social justice. This means that there was no focus on deliberately persuading the audience. Issues are presented with the use of academic articles and other reliable sources. However, there are many examples throughout the Toolkit modules that show how certain groups around the world are experiencing a disproportionate number of environmental burdens with examples of why this is happening and, in some cases, provides examples of potential solutions. From this lens, these examples and accompanying activities may help students who are skeptical see and understand that climate injustices have been occurring since colonization, and continue to occur frequently across the globe as the climate crisis escalates.
OCW: How would you characterize the pedagogical approach that informs the lessons and activities in the Toolkit?
Christopher Rabe: The modules within the Toolkit utilize a student-centered, discussion-based approach. I would describe the modules as interactive lectures and collections of activities. Many of the modules include discussion questions, case-studies analyses, group and partner brainstorms, or exploratory debate questions. There are also many optional assignment and project options that allow students to choose their own topics and direction for their final deliverable. Instructors would have many options when using modules by choosing specific activities or assignment options that best suit their classroom and teaching style.
OCW: The climate justice movement is a relatively new phenomenon, like the environmental justice movement out of which it developed. Where do you see the movement heading in the future?
Christopher Rabe: Good question! I see the movement growing and gaining steam since the pandemic and the George Floyd protests garnered a lot of attention on the human rights, public health and planetary crisis. Many articles during and after the pandemic described COVID-19 as both a part of and integral to environmental justice and climate change. The White House has the Justice40 initiative and so much funding from the Inflation Reduction Act is coming out that specifically focuses on environmental justice issues and environmental justice communities. Every day, there are more universities creating centers or minors, or other programs and initiatives related to climate and environmental justice, so it is critical for educators across institutional and educational contexts to learn more about and think about how to better include climate justice perspectives within their teaching, curriculum or program structure. Finally, MIT’s Climate Action Plan for the Decade includes a section called “The Imperative of Justice.” If MIT seeks to carry out its climate action plan, there must be more attention to what the Imperative of Justice means in the context of the classroom. The Climate Justice Instructional Toolkit is just one project that seeks to address justice from a curricular and pedagogical perspective.
