This course is grounded in the belief that socio-environmental issues, including wicked challenges like climate change, must be addressed as social justice concerns. Transformative education, broadly defined, is critical for cultivating the skills, values, and sense of agency necessary to take collective action on political, structural, and societal policies and practices, ensuring that equity and sustainability are intertwined in society's plans for the future.

Open to undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students from all U-M schools and colleges, this seminar will explore how to approach environmental education, communication, and social change from a justice-oriented perspective. The central focuses will be on theory and practice that further environmental justice and action, the design of learning environments that empower and foster social change, and building capacity in ourselves and others to become agents of change for democratic, socially just, and sustainable communities.

As colleagues in this course, we will engage in interdisciplinary and inter-organizational dialogue and inquiry through experiential pedagogy. We will explore educational resources and frameworks designed to broaden who is represented in environmental decision-making and unveil who is left out. Through readings and guest speakers, we will develop our own visions of best practices, building on theories and foundational pedagogy in critical education, social movement learning, community-based participatory learning, place-based/land-based education, environmental justice organizing, and justice-oriented science education. We will draw upon these frameworks and traditions to understand and practice strategies and skills used to advance social change and public engagement in community decision-making.

Special attention will be paid the role of building community in developing, exploring and sustaining an activist role in communities as we deepen our understanding of power, positionality, identity, and community/civic engagement. Through preparation and practice in class, we will focus on effective practices of organizing, gaining skills to engage in social action ourselves. We will practice organizing skills such as storytelling, power and asset analysis, and communication. We will apply the knowledge and skills we develop to create and implement a plan of action for a desired changes in the community.