Meet CAP Creator, Karen Costa
In the fall of 2021, as the Omicron variant of COVID was just getting started, I'd had it. It truly felt like the world was ending, which obviously felt horrible. I tried to find the silver lining, because I'm an optimist, but that felt awful too, because it felt like I was deluding myself.
I showed up to therapy and decided to hand this problem over to my therapist. I told her I saw two options: despair or delusion. Which, in her professional opinion, was preferable?
"Are you willing to consider that there might be at least one other possibility?" she asked.
I was. That third option was to recognize the fact that there are millions of smart, caring people working to right the wrongs being done to our natural world. Another fact: while I wasn't a climate scientist, there were still things that I could do to take climate action. My therapist encouraged me to start with listening to some podcasts about climate action. Then, I was to ask, "What CAN I do?"
Later that night, while listening to one of these podcasts, I wrote out the entire model of Climate Action Pedagogy, CAP. I realized that my wheelhouse is education, specifically supporting educators in their lives and in their pedagogy. I discovered a motto from the climate action world: All jobs are climate jobs.
If that was true, that meant my job as a faculty developer could be a climate job! I was onto something. CAP was born. Action is an antidote to despair, and the future is not written. Not yet.
Since that day in 2021, I've led hundreds of faculty from all disciplines toward weaving climate action into their courses. I believe that all courses are climate courses. I hope you'll join me in this mission.
Karen's Full Bio
I showed up to therapy and decided to hand this problem over to my therapist. I told her I saw two options: despair or delusion. Which, in her professional opinion, was preferable?
"Are you willing to consider that there might be at least one other possibility?" she asked.
I was. That third option was to recognize the fact that there are millions of smart, caring people working to right the wrongs being done to our natural world. Another fact: while I wasn't a climate scientist, there were still things that I could do to take climate action. My therapist encouraged me to start with listening to some podcasts about climate action. Then, I was to ask, "What CAN I do?"
Later that night, while listening to one of these podcasts, I wrote out the entire model of Climate Action Pedagogy, CAP. I realized that my wheelhouse is education, specifically supporting educators in their lives and in their pedagogy. I discovered a motto from the climate action world: All jobs are climate jobs.
If that was true, that meant my job as a faculty developer could be a climate job! I was onto something. CAP was born. Action is an antidote to despair, and the future is not written. Not yet.
Since that day in 2021, I've led hundreds of faculty from all disciplines toward weaving climate action into their courses. I believe that all courses are climate courses. I hope you'll join me in this mission.
Karen's Full Bio
