ENVS 437 – The Bahamas Summer 2022

Climate Action, Fisheries, and The Island School

Hi Redfishies – I am planning a unique experience to visit an incredible teaching and learning environment, and my former employer in The Bahamas.  This course will explore sustainable fisheries, education, and travel all set in The Bahamas at the Island School.  Come snorkel, boat and learn with about the culture of The Bahamas.

Redfish School of Change and The Island School have teamed up to offer an unusual learning experience focusing on climate action leadership, fisheries, and sustainability education at The Island School (TIS) on Eleuthera Island. Learn from local fishers, energy experts, fisheries researchers, and educators at TIS and the Cape Eleuthera Institute, a model place-based educational institution in The Bahamas.  This all-inclusive experience (room, board, and on-island travel are all included) will have you eating fresh seafood, diving and snorkeling with sharks and patch reefs, boating in the cerulean waters above a 4000 ft deep “tongue of the ocean”, all while learning about climate leadership and conducting research in the Caribbean.

Course: ENVS 437 The Bahamas: Climate Action, Fisheries, and the Island School

Credits: 8

Summer Course Dates: June 20, 2022 – August 15, 2022

Time in The Bahamas: July 18, 2022 – July 30, 2022 (with extendable stay at The Island School

Cost: $5500 including room, board, travel on island, and tuition

Click here to apply by March 11th, 2022 – you must register with WWU summer programs

The Bahamas Information Zoom Session:

Thursday March 3rd
430pm
Zoom link
Meeting ID: 917 5211 1039
Passcode: 540120

if you have any questions – please email me stangen@wwu.edu and come to the information zoom session.

dr. nick

Hope and Ecology of the Salish Sea Course

Students bask in the sunset at ȽÁU¸ḴEMEṈ, Sucia Island

This fall, join Dr. Elin Kelsey, renowned Hope ecologist, with Positive Psychology coach, Joy Beauchamp, in this cross-border partnership between the University of Victoria and Western Washington University. Designed as an intensive course, with coaching throughout the quarter, you will get to partner with University of Victoria and Western Washington University students in a Salish Sea collaboration.

Grounded in Positive Psychology and Constructivism, this course explores ways to foster hope, personal agency and community resilience during this time of heightened uncertainty associated with climate change and the global COVID-19 pandemic. The class will use a solutions-orientation to frame the current situation we are living in, and will support students in amplifying evidence-based positive trends. The one-week intensive course (Wednesday-Sunday) will have a different focus for each day: 1) Maintaining personal well-being during rapidly changing conditions; 2) The importance of hope and ‘outlaw emotions’ in engaging with and communicating about climate change or other global issues; 3) environmental intersectionality, climate justice and multi-species agency; 4) Social ecological and community resilience in the Salish Sea;  and 5) Allyship, social care, self-kindness and solutions incubators

The course will bring students outside (even through the virtual environment) and help them explore how a focus not only on the very real problems we face but also on solutions and gratitude can help amplify their ability to nurture personal, community, global sustainability and transformation in response to critical issues like climate change.

  • Class meets Wednesday September 22, 2021 for initial orientation and pre-course assignment.
  • Coaching sessions offered September 29 through Sunday November 14 (1 hour per student). 
  • Intensive online synchronous course Wednesday November 10 through Sunday November 14, 2021, 9:00 am-3:00 pm per day over five days. 

Please note: the course requires a major pre-course assignment to be completed the week before class begins and after course homework with checkins through Sunday November 28. 

Professors: Dr. Elin Kelsey (WWU) and Joy Beauchamp MA (UVic)

e-mail: elinkelsey@gmail.com and joy@schoolofchange.ca