2015 Conference

Workshop

Workshop Title:  The Climate Web - A 2.0 Tool for Preparing Students to Play “Climate Chess”

Workshop Length: ½ day

Proposed Theme and Justification:  Climate change forecasts suggest we may see 4^oC of average global temperature change and more than 6 feet of sea level rise this century, making it increasingly obvious that we have failed to address the problem. Hundreds of courses on climate change are now being taught around the country, but what is not being taught (because the tools do not exist to teach it) is “Winning at Climate Chess.” Climate Chess is the ultimate inter-disciplinary game, involving a multitude of players, pieces, disciplines, and objectives. By not teaching Climate Chess we are failing to provide students with the knowledge and skills they need to play the most important game on Earth once they enter the real world.

Goals and Learning Outcomes: Knowledge management (KM) is an increasingly important analytical and decision-making support tool, especially in today’s world of information overload. The two maxims “There's not an idea in our heads that has not been worn shiny by someone else's brains," and “If only we knew what we know” help illustrate why KM can be so useful in understanding and addressing “wicked” societal problems, and in supporting increasingly complex and inter-related decision-making. The workshop will illustrate how these maxims relate to climate change, and how the Climate Web can help address the two maxims to the benefit of students.

Teaching Methods: The workshop will be highly interactive.  The first half of the workshop will use the Climate Web to describe and introduce the game of Climate Chess, including:

• Who are some of the key players on each side of the board?
• What do many of the chess pieces in play look like?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of key pieces?
• Are there pieces not yet on the board that could be?
• Who’s working on advancing the positioning of which pieces?
• Who’s deployed the most successful strategies on the game board?
• Where on the board are real breakthroughs possible, if adequately supported?

The second half of the workshop will allow Participants to explore the Climate Web, either virtually through the workshop leader’s computer, or through their own direct connection to the Climate Web. The workshop will help explore how the Climate Web generates actionable decision-making knowledge, and helps get “the right information to the right person on the chess board at the right time.” With a knowledgebase encompassing some 10,000 documents and 10,000 URLs, the Climate Web tracks many pieces on the Climate Chess game board, from mitigation and adaptation topics to the psychology of climate risk perception and best practices in climate risk communication.  

Confirmed Leaders: Dr. Mark C. Trexler (www.climatographer.com) has been in the climate trenches for more than 25 years as an analyst, a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and as a management consultant.  In the last five years he has focused on “risk communication” as the biggest single barrier to climate progress, and has built the Climate Web as a knowledge management tool that helps overcome the risk communication barrier (among other barriers).

Brief Description:  Climate change forecasts suggest we may see 4^oC of average global temperature change and more than 6 feet of sea level rise this century, making it increasingly obvious that we have failed to address the problem. Hundreds of courses on climate change are now being taught around the country, but what is not being taught (because the tools do not exist to teach it) is “Winning at Climate Chess.” As a result we are not providing students with the knowledge and skills they need to play the most important game on Earth. Climate Chess is the ultimate inter-disciplinary game, involving a multitude of players, pieces, disciplines, and objectives, and the Climate Web is a path-breaking knowledge management tool for teaching Climate Chess. The workshop will provide participants with a hands-on introduction to The Climate Web, and explore how it can be used to prepare students to reverse 25 years of frustrating climate change mitigation efforts.