Rick Oches: Using Cli-Fi at Bentley University

Unit 1

• Because my course plan included a larger exploration of climate change, I spent additional time prior to the module working with climate system processes, reconstructing past climate change, and understanding natural and human-driven causes of climate change. This replaced the climate system overview PowerPoint and introduction in Unit 1 of the module. Students reviewed the Mauna Loa data, and they were able to answer those questions easily, since we had previously spent time plotting and interpreting CO₂ data. Because they had constructed concept maps of Earth systems interactions earlier in the semester, we did not repeat the concept map of the climate system activity within the module.

Unit 2

• Students had experience graphing data in Excel, so we did not have to spend time explaining graph construction. We did the graphing and blogging exercise as an in-class activity. Students were divided into 10 groups of two or three, with each group having a separate data set to plot (Both short stories were used in Unit 4). After graphing and discussing the data, student groups then composed a blog entry, incorporating the info requested in the assignment. In a class discussion, we reviewed several blog entries to be sure students were reporting on their data appropriately. Students then had to do the homework assignment individually, comparing their graphs and blog entries with others from the same region.

Unit 3

• One class and follow-up homework assignment was devoted to Unit 3. This unit was a significant departure from anything we had done during the semester, so it felt a little disconnected. My reaction, and that of the students, told me that I needed to do a better job introducing the module to make the context more clear. The main problem was that many students did not read the texts ahead of class and were not prepared to do the in-class literary analysis.

Unit 4

• Prior to the Unit 4 class meeting, students were assigned to read either "The Tamarisk Hunter" or "Diary of an Interesting Year," depending on the data set they graphed and blogged in Unit 2. We began the class with a review of the literary terminology and then completed the Unit 4 activity as an in-class, group effort. After spending about 30 minutes on the activity, students discussed their responses to the questions, and we had a discussion about the use of fictional literature as a means of communicating climate change and other sustainability issues.

Unit 5

• The semester was drawing to a close, so we were running out of time to do the full gallery walk activity. This unit was done as a wrap-up discussion in part of the final class meeting of the semester.