This post, which will be updated on occasion, will serve as a development space for , or ECAP, a major focus for Euglena for 2009. Once the new Euglena Academy site is finished (to be unveiled later in March), I'll move it over there. Please also see comments below for updates.
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Euglena's Climate Adaptation Program is Euglena's new education outreach program designed to help our community understand, mitigate & plan for adaption to climate change. The model for ECAP will be influenced by regional & national community training models, but designed from the systems sciences & geophysiological perspective of Euglena's curriculum.
Our goals for ECAP are to:
- address the severity of our climate crisis from a systems sciences perspective, especially geophysiology (Gaia theory), including a distinction between type 1 climate change (gradual & smooth as predicted by IPCC) v type 2 climate change (abrupt, rapid & chaotic, as predicted by the scientists followed by Euglena Academy);
- simultaneously facilitate development of realistic, positive community programs that not only mitigate, but contribute to adaptation to climate change;
- explain the value & necessity of a systems view of life & Earth, especially geophysiology; i.e., humans need to become familiar with the concept of Gaia - a self-regulating planetary system that operates similar to their own physiology - as a science, not a religion.
1) A climate change training program comprised of two courses and two workshops:
- Two weekend workshops: Clime Change 1 (the science) & Climate Change 2 (preparing for adaptation focusing on water, food, shelter, energy, health, community, security, economics, politics & psychology)
- Two courses: With Speed & Violence (based on Fred Pearce's book), & Climate & Gaia (based on the first 4 chapters of Lovelock's Revenge of Gaia).
- The basics of a self-regulating climate system explained in terms of basic systems & geophysiological principles including nonlinearity, feedback, phase transitions; class 3 & class 4 dynamics; basics of energy flow, self-organization, emergence, & Gaia theory (including the Daisyworld model).
- Type 1 v type 2 climate change & their models, and what groups are focusing on each. (E.g., IPCC tends to predict type 1 change; Lovelock & Pearce predict type 2.)
- The evidence for climate change: geological, prehistoric & modern temperature trends; ice caps, permafrost, oceans, ecosystem changes, clouds & aerosols, weather extremes, etc.
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2) Customized seminars & workshops for professional groups, such as:
- Architects & builders
- Climate activist organizations
- Food & agriculture organizations
- Health care professionals & organizations
- Alternative energy & energy conservation groups
- Educators, including high school, college & university
- Alternative transportation, esp bicycles & mass transit
- Land agencies: BLM, USFS, Corp of Engineers (flood control)...
- Policy makers: governors, representatives, mayors, city councils, county commissioners
3 comments:
Content of ECAP sounds fine. What is the format? How is it to be presented? What do students get? Can we give certification of some kind for completing a specific course of study. Content of the course can (and should)change but IMO there needs to be specific expectations that student meets and acknowledgment when a student has "finished" or "completed" the course of study.
Here's an update of my previous comment in response to Kadakluma.
In part, this is a first draft update to the post to which this comment belongs.
There are actually two overlapping but independent components to ECAP:
1) customized seminars & workshops for professional groups (e.g., builders, educators, health care, food & agricultural groups, etc)
2) on going courses and workshops at Euglena, in particular the workshops CC1 & CC2, & two courses: With Speed & Violence, & Climate & Gaia. (You'll find descriptions of those elsewhere on this blog, and soon on our new academy site, to be unveiled later in March.)
Formats for the former will be customized to meet client/group needs. We are working now with two professional groups to develop the first in the ECAP series, & plan to develop more soon.
Presentations, seminars & workshops for those will range from half day to multi-week short courses.
I'm planning to develop a specific objectives list (good suggestion) for both components of the program. The list will be substantially longer for those going through the academy training (v custom workshops for groups).
For those in the longer academy ECAP training component, certificates will be granted after a "final exam" (open book, open note, collaborative) to determine that trainees understand:
* the basics of a self-regulating climate system explained in terms of basic systems & geophysiological principles including nonlinearity, feedback, phase transitions; class 3 & class 4 dynamics; basics of energy flow, self-organization, emergence, & Gaia theory (including the Daisyworld model).
* Type 1 v type 2 climate change & their models, and what groups are focusing on each. (E.g., IPCC tends to predict type 1 change; Lovelock & Pearce predict type 2.)
* The evidence for climate change: geological, prehistoric & modern temperature trends; ice caps, permafrost, oceans, ecosystem changes, clouds & aerosols, weather extremes, etc.
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