On day 2 of the OER23 conference in Inverness (April 5&6) there was a workshop called Guerrilla EdTech responses to Climate Change: Reframing, Rewilding, Reimagining offered by Clare Thompson, Frances Bell, and Louise Drumm. We were offered an array of materials, and some leaf-shaped cutouts of denim fabric. Clare spoke to us of rewilding … and then cut us loose to construct own representation.
Seeing the leaf shape, and finding a felt butterfly and some netting in the materials (and the googly eyes – everything is better with googly eyes 👀), reminded me of how we humans have disrupted natural life-cycles with repeated layers of pro-profit anti-life chemicals, almost to the point of no return. The notion of grimdark versus hope punk from Rikke’s Toft Nørgård’s remarkable opening keynote were still resonating in my head, conjuring Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and David Attenborough’s Life On Earth and thirty five years of biology teaching and field work …
Every conference, no matter how lofty the topics under consideration, should have a ‘make and take’ session. I have my life-cycle leaf as a tangible memento of the workshop; but as with most good “stitch ‘n bitch” (!) session takeaways, seeing and touching the leaf will always remind me of the relaxed conversation with others around the table, and in the room, and at the conference at IHU Inverness.
This work by @magsamond is licensed under a Creative Commons CC-BY Attribution 4.0 International License.
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