There’s many, many issues these days that people don’t want to educate themselves on simply because they find it too depressing. This is especially true when it comes to the climate crisis. Learning about the ways in which we’re slowly – or rapidly – killing our planet is heavy and can be overwhelming, but it’s crucial that we don’t let that get in the way of learning and trying to make change.
One University of Colorado Boulder class has been using comedy for nine years now to bridge the gap between audiences and climate education. The class is called Creative Climate Communication, and its transdisciplinary – a hearty mix of students studying environmental science and environmental studies, theater, digital media, technology, and other subjects.
They spend the semester gathering educational information on climate and environment, and then – with the help of trained professionals – translate that into digestible comedy. They then put on a performance that’s free and available to the public.
That performance is happening on Monday, April 15th, at 7pm at the Boulder Theater. It will feature the comedy stylings of Chuck Nice, Rollie Williams, and Kasha Patel – in addition to stand up and sketch comedy by students.
They’re also hosting a climate comedy workshop at CU Boulder this Sunday, April 14, at 1 pm.
KGNU’s Jackie Sedley sat down with Beth Osnes, who teaches the class and other theater and environmental studies courses at CU Boulder. They were also joined by Leaf Jordan – a senior studying environmental science who’s taking the class and will be doing stand-up at the Monday show – and Ben Stasny – a PhD candidate at CU and the Teacher’s Assistant for the class.
More information can be found at insidethegreenhouse.org.
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Creative_Climate_Communication Jackie Sedley
