This project will take place on Thursday, Aug. 23, from 8:30am (registration) to 4:30pm at 0001 TEL Building, Keele campus. Everyone is welcome to attend this free event, but participants are asked to contribute to a celebratory lunch by either bringing a potluck contribution or a Pay What You Can donation ($5 to $10 suggested). Advance registration is also necessary as the Summer Institute is almost full. To register, .

The opening panel with artists and educators , Damian Adjohda and 91ŃÇÉ« FES Professor Sarah Flicker will discuss how art-making processes strengthen identity, connect community members and fuel resistance.

Left: Participants create art together at least year's Summer Institute

The morning workshops will run from 10:30am to 12:30pm with afternoon workshops from 2 to 4pm. The following is the list of workshops:

Exploring Ecology and the More-Than-Human World through ceremony and Indigenous story-telling with Tanya Chung Tiam Fook will teach participants about Indigenous ways of being present with and knowing the land, non-human beings and sacred ecology through environmental ethics, story-telling, human-animal relationships and shamanistic traditions in South America.

The Wonder of the Book looking at art, equity and environmental education through ’zine-making, with storyteller, puppeteer and bookbinder Chris Cavanagh, will be a hands-on workshop on how to make ’zines.

Hands and Eyes and Marks on Paper: An Introductory Practical Workshop on Drawing and Painting Nature (Note: Part II of this workshop continues in the afternoon) will be led by FES Professor . No previous art training is required for this full-day workshop.

In Audio Landscapes: Exploring Podcasting and Pedagogy with CoHearence, FES PhD students Amanda diBattista and Andrew Mark, coordinators of CoHearance, a podcast series that explores the intersections of culture, history and the environment (see YFile, Feb. 8), will discuss the potential for podcasting to engage students and communities in environmental conversations.

SonicWalk with , a Toronto-based media/performance artist and curator and founder of the performance company Outerregion, will have participants visiting familiar places for the first time and embracing the strange and wonderful worlds hiding in plain view.

Talking and Testifying: Writing History, Rocking Boats with performer, poet and FES Professor will offer participants hands-on ways to gather testimonies, edit and share them.

Telling Food and Eating Stories: Digital Storytelling for Food Justice with 91ŃÇÉ« Professor will focus on storytelling around food and food justice. After viewing some digital stories, participants will have the opportunity to create a story with one photograph that speaks to their experiences.

The collaborative Summer Institute brings together teachers, educators, community members, and artists to explore ways of teaching and learning, giving attention to the inter-relationships of art, environmental education and equitable social change.

For more information, visit the website or email Maggie Hutcheson, Summer Institute coordinator, at reclaimingculture2012@gmail.com.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91ŃÇɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post Summer Institute explores art, equity and environmental education appeared first on Research & Innovation.

Environmental studies PhD candidate Andrew Mark knows what’s it’s like to have a long commute to campus, but he tries to use this time productively by thinking about and listening to podcasts.

In fact, he likes podcasts so much, he and a fellow student have created a podcast series he hopes other 91ŃÇÉ« commuters will find intriguing and thought-provoking.

This week, Mark and Amanda Di Battista, also an environmental studies PhD candidate at 91ŃÇÉ«, will launch CoHearence, a new podcast series exploring the connections between the environment and history and culture.

The first episode will explore mourning, loss and the environment 

On Thursday, Feb. 9, 91ŃÇɫ’s Faculty of Environmental Studies (FES) will host a screening and discussion based on the first episode of CoHearence as part of the FES Lecture Series at 12:45pm at 141 Health, Nursing & Environmental Studies building. Mark and Di Battista, along with other participants from the episode, will be on hand for a Q&A period.

Funded by (Network in Canadian History & Environment) and the Faculty of Environmental Studies (FES), CoHearence is a six-part, monthly audio program free to the general public. Part one of the pilot podcast is “Melancholy, Mourning and Environmental Thought: Making Loss the Centre” and it looks at the loss involved in today’s changing environment.

Cohearance will also look at protests and the environment

For anyone not familiar with podcasts, they are similar to radio broadcasts with a difference in the delivery system. Instead of tuning in via radio, listeners download episodes digitally and listen to them through a computer or personal media device, such as an iPod or cellphone. “We think [podcasting] is ideally suited to talking about complex environmental issues,” says Di Battista. Mark agrees, saying “We hope this medium can create a new venue for information dissemination, beyond the written word, the lecture, the conference or an advising session.”

Di Battista says her goal in creating CoHearence is to “facilitate interesting discussion about the relationship between culture and environment. We work really hard to make each episode interesting both to those within the academy and the general public.”

Mark hopes the project will also reach an audience outside of the University. “Our primary objective is to improve the interdisciplinary discussion happening within our Faculty. We can [also] create narratives that are engaging to people outside of our community. For example, not only does our Faculty have theoretical ideas about the G20 protests, but we also have lived knowledge of those events.”

Each podcast episode will highlight current FES research. Di Battista says the reason for choosing melancholy and mourning as the topic for the first podcast is that “in the wake of the huge amount of environmental loss we talk, teach and learn about each day here in [FES], thinking about the ways that we might deal with the grief and anger that come out of those experiences seemed like a great place to start.”

Subsequent episodes will address a range of topics, including food justice, protest and resistance, and even highlights from the held last October at the Gladstone Hotel.

Di Battista and Mark hope that series will endure on the airwaves for a long time. To help ensure this, they are offering workshops on podcasting through the (CAP) program so future generations of FES students may continue to produce CoHearence. “People will discover and rediscover the series as a document of our times,” says Mark. “They might listen to our shows to hear about the topics or merely to come to know the people we interview better.”

CoHearence is available now on as a part of Sean Kheraj’s established podcast called Nature’s Past. It is also available on the website, which currently features a short preview video.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91ŃÇɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post Two PhD students create podcast series on environment appeared first on Research & Innovation.