Course concept & anticipated content
Concept & Appearance
A virtual garden tour, linking pictures of gardens, forests, minecraft creations, and virtual spaces, connects subjects cyclically and thematically. Many climate science topics (green) are paired with a fiction (yellow) and a project, intended to apply, deepen, or reframe the scientific concepts.
If I had all the time & coding ability in the world, here’s a concept for the cover page of this website:
Continuously scrolling bar on the write with the course title “Climate Science Climate Fiction.” Geocities-bright background, but of satellite images of the earth. Within an iframe/window, a view into a garden, with arrows pointing variously to where one might click. A toolbar in the upper right hand corner pulls up two maps - a conceptual map that looks like one you would get at a botanical garden, and a map of concepts that shows all the linking files. Links along the bottom of the page lead to the Github, About This Course, and Inclusion Statement.
Incoming content
| Science subject | Fiction |
|---|---|
| Weather | Cloud Writing |
| Climate | Dugongs in Ryukyu myths |
| Ice ages | Left Hand of Darkness |
| The Greenhouse Effect | Terraforming Mars |
| The Carbon Cycle | Exxon Climate Report |
| Extreme Weather | Mathur/Da Cunha architecture |
| Sea level rise | Venetian Paintings |
| Geologic processes | Ilana Halperin’s volcano |
| Climate change | Parable of the Sower |
| The Hydrologic Cycle | The Mississippi River Basin Model |
- Smailbegović A. (2015). “Cloud Writing: Describing Soft Architectures of Change in the Anthropocene.“ Art in the Anthropocene: Encounters Among Aesthetics, Politics, Environments and Epistemologies. Open Humanities Press. ISBN: 9781785420054.
- Nakahira S. (2022). “The Last Okinawan Dugongs.” The Nib. https://thenib.com/the-last-okinawan-dugongs/
- Le Guin UK. (1969). “Left Hand of Darkness.” Ace Books, New York City. ISBN: 9780441478125
- Fryxelius J and Fryxelius I. (2016). “Terraforming Mars.” FryxGames, Sweden. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/167791/terraforming-mars/credits
- Banerjee, Neela, Lisa Song, and David Hasemyer. (2015). “Exxon’s Own Research Confirmed Fossil Fuels’ Role in Global Warming Decades Ago.” Inside Climate News. https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16092015/exxons-own-research-confirmed-fossil-fuels-role-in-global-warming/.
- Mathur A and da Cunha D. (2009). “SOAK.” National Gallery of Modern Art. Mumbai.
- Camuffo, Dario. (2010). “The Sea Level in Venice according to Verones, Canalotto, and Bellotto’s Paintings.” Revue dhistoire moderne contemporaine 573 (3): 92–110. https://doi.org/10.3917/rhmc.573.0092.
- Halperin I. (2006). “Towards Helprin Land”. http://www.ilanahalperin.com/new/greenland.html
- Butler, Octavia E. (1993). Parable of the Sower. Grand Central Publishing.
- Cheramie, Kristi. (2011). “The Scale of Nature: Modeling the Mississippi River.” Places Journal. https://doi.org/10.22269/110321.
Simultaneous connections
Connection 1
I’ve been interested in using zines as a) modes of communicating climate science/experience and b) tools for learning how to communicate science. This semester, I won a small grant that allowed me the opportunity to work with Nathan Lenssen and his students in a course on “Climate Change Impacts on Humans in NYC.” With the help of scientist, designer, and friend Suki Wong, we led four workshops. Each student condensed the information from their term research papers into zines that will be printed at Secret Riso Club. Thirteen new climate zines, coming your way!
Connection 2
My work on this project led directly to a collaboration with Amelia Greenhall from Anenome. She will print the first versions of a “Climate Emergency Reading Recs” zine today (Friday, May 13)! We catalogued more than 120 books! I’ve included the cover and some of the excerpts I wrote for it below.
