From the Classroom to My Bedroom: How Teaching the Science of Climate Change and Emissions via Informal Community Education Differs Between In-Person and Virtual Classrooms

Abstract:

I teach a climate science introduction class and a personal emissions footprint class for a community education program in Arlington, Massachusetts, and the sudden shift in the spring of 2020 to a coronavirus lockdown forced the organizers, teachers, and students into an joint experiment in improvisation. Instead of teaching at the local high school, I taught from an improvised desk in my bedroom, and the classroom preparation shifted from seat arrangement and projector issues to remembering to make the bed and microphone compatibility issues. Even pre-coronavirus, informal community education had a different set of challenges and opportunities than other forms of informal education, and teaching in a virtual classroom highlights both the challenges and the opportunities. While some aspects of teaching, such as interactive small group activities, had to be modified or dropped completely in a virtual classroom, there were other facets that were enhanced by the digital format. As many of the students skew older in a community education setting, difficulties in hearing and vision were reduced as each student could control their own volume and display preferences. Since physical distance no longer mattered, students could attend from any location, and students that may have had accessibility issues or challenges in getting to the physical classroom could attend at home. While group discussions were more of a challenge in the digital classroom, in large part due to difficulties in conveying and picking up on non-verbal communication, students that may have been hesitant or too shy to ask clarifying questions or participate in discussions in a physical classroom could type questions and make points via the chat function rather than speak them out loud. Of course, all of this presupposes that students have access to a computer, stable internet, and a quiet place to log in to class, which is not the case for all potential students. As physical classrooms phase back into regular use, I anticipate (and hope) that there will not be a complete “return to normal” as there are valuable and overdue lessons we are being forced to learn (or learn again).