Event fieldnote: UC Center for Climate, Health and Equity: Climate Change and Health Education: From K-12 to Higher Education

UC Center for Climate, Health and Equity: Climate Change and Health Education: From K-12 to Higher Education
May 26, 2022 

Panelists:

• Arianne Teherani (AT), Professor of Medicine and Education Scientist in the Center for Faculty Educators at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine
• Dianne Wilson-Graham (DWG): Director, California Physical Education-Health Project, CSU Channel Islands 
• Nicole Redvers (NR): Department of Family & Community Medicine and the Department of Indigenous Health, University of North Dakota
• Cecilia Sorenson (CS): Director, Global Consortium on Climate and Health Education at Columbia University
• Gaurab Basu (GB): Primary Care Physician and Co-Director of the Center for Health Equity Education and Advocacy at Cambridge Health Alliance Instructor, Harvard Medical School

Q/A Session

AT: How did you become involved in climate change and health education? 

Dianne Wilson-Graham (DWG): California Physical Education-Health Project 

Nicole Redvers (NR): lack of preparedness during a flood in health and education professionals

Cecilia Sorenson (CS): emergency medicine position training in a busy urban setting. Summer is “trauma season” because it’s hot so everything gets compounded. “Must be a full moon out”---it’s climate change and heat—it’s impacting patients and directly our health systems 

Gaurab Basu (GB): education makes us curious, compassionate, capable of recognizing each other’s humanity. We have to ask each other deep questions about how we are taking care of each other. We’ve gotta get out of there. COVID, Climate, Gun Violence. We have got to enter the public forum. Creating a system where we are promoting equity in health. Begins with understanding science and data. Then it’s about building community and values. Where we talk about our values and the kind of storytelling and 

AT: What do you think we should be absolutely teaching our learners?

NR: Planetary Health Alliance; indigenous knowing; western cultures separate nature from bodies and communities; Interconnecting spaces, places, things; worldview inherent within indigenus communities. Cannot be doing mechanistic changes. As stewards of this planet and land. Planetary Health Education framework. 

DWG: fortunate to have a structure in K-12 that focuses on knowledge and skills. Connecting that to climate change and health. Such as: Analyzing influences for decision-making. Accessing valid information. Being able to make sound decisions. Sharing and talking about that with others; communication models. The K-12 world significantly embraces the domain of knowledge and skills, with a heavy emphasis on skills. This can be applied to climate change as well. 

CS: NR said being part of nature. Need to be breaking down the barrier. Health professionals have a key role here. We can act to protect the health of patients in communities. We are trusted messengers and communicators. Acknowledgement of our role in climate change. Acting in an advocacy lens is outside of the comfort zone for all of us. 

GB: central mantra is that climate change is about relationships with each other and with the earth. How do we build relationships to do advocacy work? Marshall Ganz’ work in teaching about community organizing. Relational and storytelling work to talk about the building of power. Each piece of this takes a ton of work. Health professionals need to do the work with communities that are rightfully mistrustful of health systems and professionals. We’ve got to enter the public forum and be leaders. 

AT: How are the ways you are proposing in education different from what already exists out there?

GB: Curriculum in medical school is about climate change and health. But we often stop there. We need to work on cultivating our identity. We need to sit there and reflect on how this is hard. Losing the opportunity to bring our whole selves as persons and human beings. What are the deep values that make me come alive? Everyone has a role here and has something to offer. We need all of those skill sets. We need to create educational spaces for that reflective work and calling in. 

NR: Gave a keynote in the UK after which attendees had a discussion under a tree. Land-pedagogies are looking at land as active teachers and healers. As opposed to an entity that you are going to sit on. We need examples of concrete relationships. Really urging students; relational thinking is a form of systemic thinking. We have to gently nudge students into that. Our elders have had that thinking for thousands of years because of their observational and empirical skills. 

DWG: I resonate with everything everyone has said. One of the things we’ve had success with K-12 schools is thinking about interdisciplinary approaches. I’ve never heard educators say that they don’t need more time, or more courses. I want to share a simple example from elementary school. Great success with connecting English language and mathematical skills with health education. Learning how to write a paragraph about health, environment, and climate? In a personal and meaningful way. When a learner gets to decide about their approaches when they are learning to write a paragraph. Those require authentic connections and accountability for all. Learning is never linear. 

CS: Around 270 health professional schools have pledged to teach health professionals in climate change and health education. A lot of our work is connecting people and regions. I want to have a role in this. How can we engage people globally to do this? Trying to tailor our approach to what the region needs. How can we help accelerate and facilitate that?

AT: In terms of facilitation, how are you seeing ways in which global, national, local policy mandates could activate or hinder this transnational and global connection? 

CS: We just ran a huge health course for Latin America health policy professionals. It checks the box on their national adaptation plan. They’re training their national ehealth force. It’s actually been pretty welcome. How we can further connect health professionals to health policy professionals and local levels. Launching workshop linking policy-makers in co-creation of research-to-policy rapid transformation. Tailored to the geographic area where impact is happening. How can we accelerate those dialogues? 

GB: I am really impressed by this. This is ambassadorship. The health voice is often not in those spaces for climate change policy. We are able to speak in very human terms. I get super excited working with engineers and scientists. Our ability to articulate research and problems to patients is being ignored. I am struck by how often we are not represented. 

CS: 50 million health professionals in the world. That’s so many people. Our ability to humanize this landscape if we are united. This “really human feel” of what we bring. We bring the human voice to the conversation. The struggle with education is to prepare health professionals who are going to be bedside nurses to make them see their role in this. 

NR: Tenure-track faculty set-ups in universities de-incentivises faculty in research positions in transdisciplinary conversations unless they are in an advanced position where they can have those conversations. How do our institutional setups hold up progress in these areas? We have a disconnect in what research benefit means to researchers and communities. Indigenous scholars have a hard time grappling with this. Given the position we are in, we can be discouraged or encouraged to influence policy-making. 

AT: Acknowledgement of the stewardship of the environment

DWG: How can schools accept their role in creating high-quality education?

AT: I want to hear from each of you to recommend how the University of California should respond to this?

GB: I am a Californian. Universities have a unique opportunity to do deep thinking and create solutions of how we are doing things better. Very few institutions have that mandate. Taking scholarship and putting it into action. Bringing expertise and community expertise together. There’s so much demand, need, and expertise. 

CS: We know this is going to be incredible work. Massive and well-respected institution have the ability to convene groups. Communities and businesses who could be at odds with each other. Neutrality of educational institutions has that ability. Coming from a place of deep caring for humanity. 

NR: UC is a land-grant institution. Responsibility towards indigenous people. California has the highest number of indigenous people working in institutions. My hope is to see more engagement with tribal communities; not with an expectation of participation because that wouldn’t be protocol, but demonstration and trust-building. Elements

DWG: Being on the frontline of education, health, science, medicine, UC has an immense responsibility to talk about this.