The FOCUS! Teacher’s Climate Change Collaborative is an immersive, learning experience involving British Columbia secondary school teachers and resource guests who will develop an enhanced understanding of climate change topics for the classroom.  The 5-day Focus! Teacher’s Climate Change Collaborative aims to achieve the following goals:

• create innovative pedagogical strategies that foster a STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) approach in the classroom;
• empower teachers to share their enthusiasm, knowledge and inspiration for new school-wide initiatives; and,
• develop a community of like-minded colleagues to seek reflective feedback on student learning activities, awareness and action.

If you are a British Columbia secondary school teacher (Grade 8-12) who is:

• passionate about teaching and learning;
• experimental with your pedagogical approaches;
• excited by multidisciplinary learning modules;
• creative in delivering climate change content;
• curious about what others are doing;
• wanting to deepen your own knowledge about climate change;
• inspired by the innovations and actions of others;
• reflective about the opportunities for, and challenges presented by, teaching climate change content;
• driven to empower student learning; and,
• willing to immerse in a week-long collaborative design process,

we would love you to apply to participate in the pilot FOCUS! Teacher’s Climate Change Collaborative.

Teachers in both BC public and independent school systems are eligible to apply.

It is our plan to offer the 2022 FOCUS! Teacher’s Climate Change Collaborative IN PERSON in VANCOUVER, BC.  We will, however, adjust this plan should BC Health Authority dictates recommend against in-person gathering.

We will be using a variety of learning and engagement formats during the immersive. These are:

• Resource Guide(s) & Shared Learning:  Confidence boosting, expanded learning on climate change topics (Climate Change Science, Policy & Economics, Eco-Justice) with resource guests who serve as learning journey guides.
• Curriculum Design Groups: Participants will work in a team of 4-5 person collaboration groups on a single curriculum project throughout the Collaborative.
• BC Innovation Spotlights: Presentations by some of BC’s Leading Climate Change Innovators
• Classroom Problem Solving: Guided learning and interactive discussion about teaching climate change in the classroom including combatting eco-anxiety, fostering hope, facilitating difficult dialogues to foster topic engagement, and moving students from learners to action-takers.
• Interaction Activities: Highly interactive network building sessions with climate change learning activities that can be transported directly into the classroom.

Resource Guests are distinguished climate change scholars, innovators, or action leaders, and are fundamental to the success of our initiative. Resource Guests are the individuals who define and shape participants’ knowledge acquisition, spark topic curiosity, and stimulate highly interactive discussions to deepen climate change understanding: they are learning journey guides. For each topic we identify a Lead Resource Guest or Lead Resource Guest Team who identify 1-3 advance reading materials for participants, make a presentation or participate as part of a panel discussion, guide interactive topic discussion with participants, and provide feedback on participants’ newly imagined curriculum modules to ensure that core knowledge is learned by future students.

We have an amazing line-up of Resource Guests participating in this endeavour and express our sincere gratitude to all for sharing their knowledge and leading our collective learning journeys.

• The immersive collaborative takes place July 5 – July 9, 2021 (by Zoom)
• Three advance  1.5 to 2.0 hour Zoom sessions will occur as follows:
  • Early May 2021
  • End of May 2021
  • Mid June 2021

The Application Portal for the 2021 Collaborative is now closed.

If you have any other questions, please direct them to Ms. Sue Roppel, President, Kimberley Foundation, at info@kimberley-foundation.org.   We thank you for your interest in the FOCUS! Teacher’s Climate Change Collaborative.