My Climate Story Workshop: Universal College of Aley

The My Climate Story team at PPEH partnered with Universal College of Aley to carry out a workshop in climate storytelling. A group of about 20 students in Aley, Lebanon, collaborated to create an archive of how they have sensed climate change where they live. 

Stories of climate change are often illustrated by emaciated polar bears, storms on steroids, or apocalyptic fires. Yet many climate impacts are less immediately recognizable. My Climate Story is a public research project and curriculum that makes global climate change personal. Interactive workshops create climate conversations and guide participants to recognize how local climate impacts are impacting their lives in the here and now--and shaping their life stories. 

Climate stories from the workshops are, with author permission, included in My Climate Story's public "storybank," a resource for exploring how diverse individuals are making meaning of changes more typically measured in quantitative measures of atmospheric CO2 or sea levels and their rates of change. 

PPEH's Climate Story team has provided introductory climate conversation workshops for climate storytellers ranging from sixth grade to university professors and offer two follow-on workshops: on climate interviewing and on non-human species' climate stories. We are committed to training others in the greater Philadelphia region and beyond to write their own climate stories and start climate conversations. We also offer training for those who want to learn to host climate workshops for their schools and organizations.