Thank You, Fulbright, for the Distinguished Awards in Teaching Fellowship!

Great news! I was awarded a Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching Fellowship, which will bring me and my family to Greece for six months during my sabbatical year, 23-24. I'll use this blog to document the experience, and this site will host the final product of my research. 

For this research project, I'm interested in how we communicate climate change challenges and solutions to secondary students. I have lived and taught here in coal country for over a decade. The impacts of our changing climate in my region are direct, and subtle. Our storms are getting bigger, with so-called 100 year storms happening several times a decade. 

As chair of our small town's Public Works Committee (an elected, volunteer position) I see this in rising costs of flood prevention, and overall stormwater management. This means increased taxes for improved infrastructure. It should also mean changes to buildings codes, and public policy dealing with stormwater runoff. Think rain gardens, permeable pavers and rain barrels. It also means education about how to protect our watershed.

A more subtle, yet damaging impact of climate change is the dramatic reduction of coal as a means to produce electricity. Southwest PA is coal country, and as the use of coal has crashed, so has the local economy. We're feeling these impacts in real time; last month (June 2023) one of the largest coal fired generating plants in the country, and one of three in our county, turned off for good. One hundred twenty nine jobs lost directly, hundreds more in the supporting businesses, like truckers and restaurants. Many students at my school have family who had a job at the end of the year, but won't in the fall. 

Transition economies require new thinking, new inspiration, and new skills. Our community is in transition and has an opportunity to build a new sustainable economy. Our students today inherit economic challenges their families were able to weather thanks to strong demand for fossil fuels, and strong unions.

My project is looking outside of Indiana, PA to other communities facing immediate challenges, not just to the physical landscape around them, but to their economic livelihoods. To that end, I researched coastal communities facing sea level rise and other challenges to economic drivers like tourism. In regions dependent on pristine beaches and coast lines, sustainable, "eco" solutions make a lot of sense.

To my great fortune, I came across a great Eco-model at a deep water port on one of the many Grecian islands, called Skyros. The Skyros Project is an award winning collaboration between public health researchers at the University of West. Attica and the deep water port on Skyros Island. 

I've managed to team up with the incredible folks behind this project, and they've already proved to be an incredible resource to connect with educators across Greece who are leading the way in preparing students to face the challenges to come. I'm looking forward to being able to use that project as a jumping off point for my research. More on that in the next post.