Home

Even as the proliferation of new media platforms has made it possible for activists and community organizations to publicize the causes and consequences of climate change to a broader audience than ever before, the overlap of environmental degradation and racism remains underrepresented. For example, BIPOC communities are more likely to experience the terminal consequences of climate change, while institutional racism continues to enforce the unequal distribution of resources and limit equal access to decision making around such issues as illegal dumping, superfund sites, and industrial development.

Not only do experts in all fields struggle to redress the social and environmental degradation caused by warming, pollution, and loss, they also endeavor to communicate the consequence, scale, and complexity of these processes to expert and nonexpert audiences to initiate change.

Because there can be no solution to climate change in the absence of racial equity, in this Serve Learn Sustain affiliated class students will learn how to communicate effectively in technical genres using environmental justice as a vehicle for that communication practice. At the start of the semester, students will analyze and synthesize ideas key to environmental justice articulated by authors such as Robert Bullard, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Carolyn Finney, Dianne Glave, and Harriet Washington.

After exploring the theoretical framework for equitable sustainability these authors provide, students will work with community partner clients, The Greening Youth Foundation and Groundwork Atlanta, to propose and create deliverables such as websites, newsletters, social media campaigns, press releases, and audio features tailored to their specific organizational needs. The semester will conclude with a public showcase and submission of deliverables to our clients.