Teach-In on Sustainability Fall 2024

 2024 Teach-In on Sustainability

Welcome to the 2024 Teach-In on Sustainability Resource Guide! Use the navigation on the left to find books, ebooks, DVDs, and streaming video related to each of this semesters' panels and presentations. Visit the official Teach-In on Sustainability website for more information on the goals of the Teach-In as well as the sessions. 

Our Work Today for a Sustainable Tomorrow

November 20-22, 2024

In 2015, the United Nations introduced 17 Sustainable Development Goals as a blueprint for a better, more sustainable future for all. 

Here at Emerson, we’re on it. Across the College and around the world, Emersonians are contributing to a better future in many ways, big and small, because we all have a stake in what’s ahead. The Teach-In on Sustainability at Emerson College is designed to showcase the work, experiences, and ideas of our faculty, students, and alumni.

Wednesday, November 20

• 2:00 - 3:30 pm EST | Sustainable Approaches to Public Health: Voices from Colombia, Guatemala, and Kenya | This panel will address what it means to take a broad and sustainable approach to public health in three different Global South countries. Speakers will first frame their community contexts in terms of the social determinants of health and healthcare systems. They then will discuss their own impacts on these constructs and systems, including engaging communities, increasing health advocacy and equity, and training healthcare professionals. Students should come prepared with questions for the panelists.
  Sustainable Development Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all age

Thursday, November 21 

• 10:00 a.m. - 11:45 a.m EST | Environmental Reporting | The work toward achieving sustainability, and making sure the burden of that does not fall on the least-powerful communities, is done by many groups, including lawyers in groups such as the Conservation Law Foundation.  On Thursday, Nov. 21, at 10:15 am, one of those lawyers, Anxhela Mile, will speak by Zoom in Piano Row 232.

  Sustainable Development Goal 16: Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels

• 12:00 p.m. to 1:45 p.m. EST | Ecofeminism in the Twenty-First Century: A Conversation | Join Professors Pettersen and McWeeny in a conversation about the importance of ecofeminism to contemporary environmentalism and social justice movements. We will discuss key features of ecofeminist perspectives with reference to the work of Val Plumwood, A. Breeze Harper, Carol J. Adams, Chaone Mallory, and others. Topics of conversation include care ethics, historical parallels between women and nature, violence and exploitation, sustainability practices in diverse communities, and the intersections of racism, colonialism, sexism, abelism, and speciesism. Bring your questions and ideas about ecofeminism and join the conversation!

  Sustainable Development Goal 16: Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels

• 12:00 p.m. to 1:45 p.m. EST | Mapping Your Sustainability Knowledge | As a complex problem, sustainable development requires creative communication strategies, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and highly skilled leaders. One way institutions of higher learning are preparing students across a wide range of majors—from engineering and environmental science to English and Theatre—is by mapping connections between the skills and knowledge students gain in their coursework and the 169 targets that make up the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. In this interactive presentation, participants will explore the findings of SDG mapping efforts at Emerson and identify their own sustainability strengths.
  Sustainable Development Goal 4: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
  Sustainable Development Goal 16: Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
   
• 12:00 p.m. to 1:45 p.m. EST | Introduction to Sustainable Development |This course (PL 250) is designed to provide students with an introduction to the interdisciplinary field of sustainable development and the intricate interaction between politics, economics, global institutions, and the pursuit of sustainable development goals. It describes the challenges of the world economy and the Earth's physical environment to address issues of environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive development.

  This session focuses on all 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

• 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. EST | Keynote: Why Communication and the Arts are Crucial to Sustainability | Boaz Paldi is a campaigns, partnership , advocacy and communications expert, experienced in leading major international organizations in all outreach campaigns and public relations needs. As the Chief Creative Officer at UNDP, he recently launched both the #DontChooseExtinction and the #WeatherKids campaigns. 
  In this session, Boaz will discuss the work he does at UNDP—one of the main UN bodies to oversee the SDGs—the importance of communication to the global sustainability effort, and why Emerson is a perfect spot for a major in Sustainability Communication. He will tell us why everything we teach and do here—film making, marketing, journalism, performing arts, everything—is crucial to the global sustainability effort. In Boaz’s words, communication is the missing link in moving us toward a just transition. Emerson can make that happen.
  This session focuses on all 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

• 5:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. EST | Ecocinema Screening and Discussion: Deep Rising | Join the MFA students of the Environmental Media Studies graduate seminar for a screening and discussion of the Deep Rising (2023), a documentary feature about the race to mine the deep sea floor for the rare metals necessary to many 21st-century technologies, including renewable energy storage. Capturing the conflict between oceanic ecosystem stability and green energy futures, the film (narrated by Jason Mamoa) offers visual representation to the complex splendor of a rarely seen biome, casts light on the struggles between corporate power and the UN's International Seabed Authority, and illuminates crucial contradictions in current climate crisis solutions.
  Sustainable Development Goal 7: Ensure access to clean and affordable energy
  Sustainable Development Goal 9: Build resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialization and foster innovation.
  Sustainable Development Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
  Sustainable Development Goal 14: Conserving and sustainably using the oceans, seas and marine resources.

Friday, November 22

• 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. EST | Sustainable SLPs: Strategies for long term success! | Speech Language Pathologists (SLPs) are in demand professionals, but how do we create sustainable practices for the long haul? Our panel of expert SLPs have experience, knowledge and strategies which will support developing and established clinicians alike to create a successful, sustainable practice and avoid the ever increasing burn-out we face as practitioners. Topics of discussion may include: sustainability when supporting diverse populations, the realities of working in fast paced settings, and tips and tricks for maintaining a work/life balance to support mental health.

  Sustainable Development Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
  Sustainable Development Goal 10: Reduce inequality within and among countries

• 12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. EST | Compost Concert | Join Emerson Green Collective and the sustainability team for our annual Compost Concert. The event will feature musicians, dancers, and a puppet show. Student organizations will also be present to share information about how their work intersections with sustainability. Lunch provided.
  Sustainable Development Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

• 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. EST | Workshop: Sustain Your Brain! Care for Your Creativity | The challenges of today’s global and climate challenges call for profoundly different ways of thinking, living and working.  At the heart of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals is the need for creative thinking; allowing for us to reflect, adapt, address and develop new solutions, as well as be creative in how we communicate, reflect, and tell our stories in ways that inspire others towards sustained positive change. Creativity is core to our shared future. It also requires personal care so that it too can be a sustained resource for us to tap into rather than become burned out or blocked. In this hands-on workshop, participants will explore ways to refill, refuel, and boost their thinking through creative practices and time-tested tools, allowing them to remain inspired, discover opportunities, and foster adaptive and flexible thinking.
  Sustainable Development Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
  Sustainable Development Goal 4: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

• 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. EST | Environment & Sustainability Writer's Panel: Create/Communicate/Convince |  Writers address the importance and the challenges of writing fiction, non-fiction, poetry, etc. that take as their subject climate, environmental, and other sustainable issues.
  Sustainable Development Goal 4: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
   
• 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. EST | Hardcore Marketing Workshop: A Short Course in Marketing for the Non-Marketer |  Hardcore Marketing is marketing for the non-marketer: An alternative approach to traditional marketing process that yields pro-level strategic insights and creative direction in a highly compressed timeframe. In this session we'll learn some basic Hardcore Marketing principles and how to employ them.
  Sustainable Development Goal 4: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
   
• 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. EST | 24-Hour Plays | The 24-Hour Play Festival offers writers, directors, and actors an opportunity to explore the 17 Sustainable Development Goals through the lens of theatre. They will write, direct, and produce a short play (5–10 min.) that forms a unique narrative around one of the goals within 24 hours. While the pieces will explore sustainability through the SDGs, the production team of the festival will also explore ways in which a 24-Hour Play Festival process can be sustainable, i.e. encouraging sustainable writing and production habits throughout the process. Produced by QTC Boston's Artistic Director Hannah McEachern, audiences can expect fast-paced, thought-provoking pieces about sustainability in all its forms.

  This session focuses on all 17 Sustainable Development Goals.