About Us

The primary goal of this climate literacy resource is to help and encourage grades 6-12 (middle to high school) teachers to incorporate information about climate change in classrooms outside STEM disciplines. This resource was inspired in part by The Teacher Friendly GuideTM to Climate Change, a publication by the Paleontological Research Institution, whose focus is primarily high school Earth and environmental science teachers.

Current Project Leaders:

  • Bosiljka Glumac is a Professor of Geosciences at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, USA. She came up with the idea for this web resource when she surveyed students in her GEO 106 Extraordinary Events in the History of Earth, Life and Climate course and realized that they had very little familiarity with the impact of climate on human history. 
  • Yusra Afzal is a class of 2027 chemistry major and student of translation studies at Smith College. Her work has included writing and revising entries, with a focus on the translation elements of the Languages section. Examples include Eight Seasons, Borealis: Life in the Woods, and Japanese.

Former Project Leaders:

  • Julia Herzfeld is a class of 2021 graduate of Smith College, where they majored in sociology and minored in geosciences. Prior to their graduation, they worked with Bosiljka to create this resource, coordinating with students and working professionals, writing and revising many topic entries, and helping to develop this website. Their entries focused on the History/Social Studies section, particularly related to Europe and the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region prior to the Modern Age. Examples include Rise and Fall of the Western Roman Empire (285–476 CE), and Nile River Flood Failure in Ptolemaic Ancient Egypt (c. 300 BCE).
  • Caroline Davock is a class of 2023 Smith College graduate who majored in biology and minored in geosciences. She researched, wrote and revised many of the early entries in Art, Literature and History/Social Studies, such as The Year Without a Summer Project, Frankenstein and The Vampyre, and those relating to the Little Ice Age. She also helped create this website.
  • Ollie Donald graduated from Smith College in 2022 with a degree in Environmental Geosciences. During the summer of 2022, they worked as a Research Fellow on revising entries, updating the website, and adding Indigenous Perspectives.
  • Taylor Agena is a class of 2026 engineering major at Smith College. They have written and revised various entries, particularly in the areas of History/Social Studies, Indigenous Perspectives, and Music.
  • Ave Petra is a class of 2027 environmental science and studio art double major at Smith College. She has written and revised various entries, particularly in the areas of Art, Languages, and Music, including for example: Inundation: Art and Climate Change in the Pacific (2020), Climate in Crisis: Environmental Change in the Indigenous Americas (2020-2023), Tagalog, and “(Nothing But) Flowers” by Talking Heads.
  • Carol Berner is a lecturer in the Department of Education and Child Study at Smith College. She coordinates the Water Inquiry group, a collaboration of Smith students and faculty and local K–12 teachers and is the regional coordinator of River of Words, a place-based education initiative integrating watershed science, literacy and the arts in the Connecticut River Valley.

Contact Us: 

climate@smith.edu or via this form

Acknowledgements

Initial Conversations

Tiphareth Ananda (4th grade teacher, Campus School of Smith College), Tracy Dawson-Greene (7th grade social studies teacher, Northampton JFK Middle School)

Expert Advice

Vanessa Adel (Professor of Sociology, Smith College), Annika Bergstreiser (Stuttgart, Germany), Lisa Berrios (Smith College AC ’02), Anna Botta (Professor of Comparative Literature and Italian Studies, Program of World Literatures, Smith College), Katie Boyd (CLEAN Program Manager), Rich Cairn (Director, Emerging America), Lewis Dartnell (Professor of Life Sciences, University of Westminster, London), Gregory de Wet (Professor of Geosciences, Smith College), Graham Dodd (Director of Curriculum Design & Innovation, Campus School of Smith College), Don Duggan-Haas (Director of Teacher Programming, The Paleontological Research Institution), Martin Finné (Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Uppsala University), Lisa Gardiner (UCAR Center for Science Education), May George (Faculty of Arabic, Smith College), Julia Ginsburg (Graduate Student, Concordia University), Lily Gurton-Wachter (Professor of English, Smith College), Kinuyo Kanamaru (Japanese language), Yuri Kumagai (Senior Lecturer in Japanese, Smith College), Alexander Koch (Postdoctorate Fellow in Geography, Simon Fraser University), Reyes Lázaro (Professor, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Smith College), Joseph Manning (Professor of Classics & History, Yale University), Agnese Mannucci (Italy), Miranda McCarvel (Lecturer in English Language & Literature, Smith College), Christen Mucher (Professor of American Studies, Smith College, Five Colleges Certificate in Native American and Indigenous Studies), Heather Petcovic (Western Michigan University), Gisella Policastro Ponce (Associate Professor, Department of Social Sciences, Philosophy, Geography, and Translation & Interpreting, University in Córdoba, Spain), Javier Puente (Professor of Latin American Studies, Smith College), Al Rudnitsky (Professor of Education, Smith College), Margaret Sarkissian (Professor of Music, Smith College), Koji Seike (Japanese language), Andrea Stone (Associate Professor of English Language and Literature, Member of American Studies, Member of Book Studies and Archives Concentrations, Smith College), Steve Waksman (Professor of Music, Smith College), Frazer Ward (Professor of Art, Smith College), Chenyu Wang (Western Michigan University), Erika Weiberg (Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Uppsala University), Rebecca Worsham (Professor of Classical Languages and Literatures, Smith College)

Content Contributors – Smith College student research fellows and volunteers

Muneera Aldarwish, Sophie Arnstein (Volcanoes in Art), Emma Atkinson (The Arctic Expedition of Sir John Franklin), Miriam Boardman (An Introduction to the Word Climate), Kat Brady (Arabic), Sofia Calavitta, Ciara Chen, Rachel Clendenning (The Syrian Refugee Crisis), Elizabeth “Ella” Comfort-Cohen (Spanish), Kiran Das-Goel, Olivia Dawson (Southwestern United States Megadrought) Samikshya Dhami (Famines in Western India), Hannah Durkee (Migration of Early Homo Sapiens Out of East Africa), Franchesca Fernandez, Olivia Grandbois (Climate Change and Mental Health Issues), Kayara Hardnett-Barnes (Volcanoes in Art, Feed Lot (1991) by Sue Coe), Mika Holtz, Dominique Kelly (Namazu (鯰) the Earthshaker), Aleena Khan (The Swan Book (2013) by Alexis Wright), Tierna Matecha (Decline of the Mycenaean Civilization, Wildfires, Sea Level Rise and Coastal Flooding, Saharan Dust Clouds, The Global Food Crisis, Korean, “Wake Up America” by Miley Cyrus, ), Sela McNeil (Heat Waves, James Temte, Big Weather), Lesly Oquendo, Hannah Osman (“Feels Like Summer” by Childish Gambino), Annabel Stattelman-Scanlan (Urbanization), Lesley Tilghman (The Great Dying), Veronica Picard, Renee Rienecker, Olivia Sabini-Leite (An Introduction to the Word Climate), Caroline Sears, Juliet Schulman-Hall, Maya Stefanelli, Victoria Tse, Kyara Soto Villareal, Kerry Walker (Japanese), Wantong Wu (Mandarin)

Constructive Feedback

Tola Alabi (AFDB Independent Consultant), Jason Donev (Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Calgary), Brittany Gutermuth (Climate Change Education Coordinator, Mass Audubon), Michael Jabot, Katie Modic (Executive Director, Communitopia), Ginger Wireman (Community Outreach & Environmental Education Specialist, Nuclear Waste Program – WA Dept. of Ecology)

Funding

Smith College Center for the Environment, Ecological Design and Sustainability (CEEDS), Smith College Geoscience Department

Tech and Website Assistance

Frank Citino (Smith College)