Mid-Atlantic Climate Change Education Conference – Day 1
/The Mid-Atlantic Climate Change Education Conference (MACCEC) was a conference that went virtual because of the pandemic. I anticipated that it would be an intense 4 hours in from of my computer. I set up to use both of my screens – one for the WebEx and one for note taking/agenda/etc. Initially, I thought I might use a headset for the audio but quickly decided that 4 hours was too long for that. I also thought that I might get up and move around more during the sessions, but I was too busy interacting with polls and chat…and taking notes. I only got up and moved during the breaks!
Now that it is the ‘morning after,” I’ve had some hours to digest what happened on the first day. It was overwhelming at times while it was happening – and in a different way than an in-person conference is overwhelming. The flow of chat during the presentation is often invigorating but also distracting. It requires multi-tasking. Sometimes I tuned it out to focus on the presenter entirely.
Like most conferences, the speakers were often rushed so that we could stay in the time windows on the agenda. The charts were posted which made up for the rush somewhat…but not completely.
There were breakout sessions that ended up having some similarities with in-person conferences since one time I got lost for about a minute…couldn’t find my session!
The big take aways from the first day were:
information is out there for climate change educators…choosing what works best for their situation
education on climate change is interlinked with JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion)
always get to solutions…don’t stop with defining the problems
The ice-breaker activity was to determine the native inhabitant of land where participants were located using the https://native-land.ca/ website. I learned that where I live is Piscataway land. Where my daughter lives in Springfield MO is Kickapoo, Osage, and Sioux land. The land where my parents and sisters live in Texas (Carrollton, Flower Mound, and Sherman) was Kickapoo and Wichita land. Got us all thinking about how the land, water and air have changed since then…what we can and should restore.
Unique activities for yesterday:
Deer found the day lilies. The deer ate many of the day lily buds in the past few days. I am cutting a few every day as they manage to mature enough to bloom indoors.
I found one already blooming under the milkweed this morning – a different variety than I had cut before. The stalk was shorter which probably helped it escape deer notice. Other buds are hiding in the same way…and I hope they will remain for few more days until they are ready to be cut.
Oak shedding acorns. Our oak tree dropped quite a few immature acorns on our driveway in the past few days. There are so many…. not many left on the tree to mature over the summer.
