Examining climate and environmental justice teaching practices at MIT
In this video Q&A, J-WEL Education Innovation grantee Christopher Rabe discusses his project to map climate justice-related courses at MIT.
By Maria Segala
Through its Education Innovation Grants, the Jameel World Education Lab (J-WEL) at MIT Open Learning aspires to develop the building blocks, ideas, and connections that power global transformation in learning. J-WEL grants support educational innovations across a rich variety of fields including: linguistics, mechanical engineering, literature, architecture, physics, management, political science, and more. More than $5 million in funding has been awarded to MIT researchers since 2017.
As part of an ongoing series, we are taking a closer look at each 2023 grantee’s projects. In the spotlight today is Christopher Rabe, education program director at the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative. His project, “Climate and Environmental Justice (CEJ) inclusion: exploring CEJ teaching practices across departments, labs, or centers at MIT,” investigates existing CEJ teaching practices in MIT courses.
According to Rabe, many higher education institutions, including MIT, lack integration of CEJ practices in its environmental and sustainability programs. This exclusion, he says, leads to underrepresented students — such as Black, Indigenous, and people of color — feeling discrimination and isolation within these programs. Inclusive learning environments for all students create more opportunities for successfully addressing global climate change challenges.
In addition to his J-WEL supported project, Rabe developed the Climate Justice Instructional Toolkit, a collection of resources and programming to provide support to faculty members and instructions across disciplines within introductory undergraduate courses to facilitate the integration of climate justice content and related instructional approaches into their courses.
Here, Rabe discusses his project, its potential impact, what success looks like, and more.
What excites you most about your project?
“I’m going to classes all across MIT…I get to go to this diverse collection of classes and be a fly on the wall and be a student. It’s super exciting to see climate-related education at MIT in action. I feel very fortunate to be able to see what students are experiencing.”
Is there anything that surprised you sitting in on these classes across MIT?
“The key early finding of my study is that many, many of the classes — I would say almost all of them — don’t include climate justice or environment in the title or the description, so it was hard to find these classes…I think it’s interesting to think about how the term ‘climate justice’ may be too specific…but then, there are particular kinds of students — like students of color, low income students, or international students from a country that is being affected by a climate justice issue — that want it to be more prominent.”
In what ways do you anticipate your project will impact the MIT community and the educators you’ve been working with?
“This would be the first map of climate justice-related courses at MIT ever…a student could ask ‘where are the environmental courses?’ and we’d have a much better map [to guide them].”
What does success look like for your project and what milestones are you aiming to achieve by the end of the grant term?
“Having [resources] in a really clear, digestible report for lots of different stakeholders — like faculty and instructors at MIT, students interested in this work…and also people outside of MIT, there is a lot of interest in climate and environmental justice…communicating this work to them clearly, I think that looks like success.”
Have you experienced any unexpected challenges or hurdles and what have they been?
“One of [the challenges] is if you search for ‘environmental justice’ or ‘climate justice’ in the course catalog you don’t get much, you have to sift through things and check. And actually, many of the courses I’ve found have been through word of mouth.”
What else should I ask you about your project?
“Once you get this information, how can you communicate it to people…that shows it as tangible and connected to other classes…climate education is very interdisciplinary.”
Interested in learning more about grants from the Jameel World Education Lab at MIT Open Learning? Visit the lab’s grants website.
