EPISODE 7: In Climate Conversations, Empathy is Everything (Brandon Leshchinskiy) In our previous episode we met Professor Dava Newman, cofounder of the nonprofit group EarthDNA. Today’s guest is Brandon Leshchinskiy, a graduate student in Technology and Policy at MIT’s Institute for Data, Systems, and Society, who has helped Prof. Newman create the EarthDNA Ambassadors program, training young people in communication, negotiation, and storytelling to build support for individual and collective action on climate change. Leshchinskiy has crafted an engaging interactive presentation, called Climate 101, that creatively employs materials from various sources to examine climate change from scientific, economic, and civic perspectives. By teaching young people to deliver this presentation effectively, he is developing a cohort of trained climate educators who can in turn teach their peers to reach out to friends and family on one of humanity’s most pressing issues. In this episode, Leshchinskiy discusses why young people make effective climate ambassadors, how climate presentations can be made more powerful by customizing them with specific details that are relevant to people’s own communities, what we can learn from society’s response to the challenges of Covid-19, and how to avoid developing “doom fatigue” from exposure to negative news stories. Relevant Resources MIT OpenCourseWare https://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=shownotes&utm_campaign=chalkradio&utm_term=s2e7 OCW’s 20th anniversary celebration registration page https://www.eventbrite.com/e/celebrate-ocws-20th-anniversary-tickets-146458706935 The OCW Educator Portal https://ocw.mit.edu/educator?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=shownotes&utm_campaign=chalkradio&utm_term=s2e7 EarthDNA on the Web https://earthdna.org/ EarthDNA’s Climate 101 on OCW https://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-env-003-earthdnas-climate-101-fall-2019/ utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=shownotes&utm_campaign=chalkradio&utm_term=s2e7 EarthDNA Ambassadors program https://earthdna.org/ambassadors/ Wangari Maathai (Nobel Peace Prize winner) https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2004/maathai/facts/ “I will be a hummingbird” (YouTube video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGMW6YWjMxw Professor Dava Newman at MIT’s Institute for Data, Systems, and Society https://idss.mit.edu/staff/dava-newman/ Rand Wentworth at Harvard’s Center for the Environment https://environment.harvard.edu/people/rand-wentworth Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions https://www.sessions.blue/ Connect with Us If you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you! Call us @ 617-715-2517 On our site https://ocw.mit.edu/about/contactus/ On Facebook https://www.facebook.com/MITOCW/ On Twitter https://twitter.com/MITOCW?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor On Instagram https://www.instagram.com/mitocw/?hl=en Stay Current Subscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. https://ocw.mit.edu/subscribe/index.htm?utm_source=header Support OCW If you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep those programs going! https://giving.mit.edu/give/to/ocw/ https://giving.mit.edu/give/to/ocw/?utm_source=ocw&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=donate Credits Sarah Hansen, host and producer Brett Paci, producer (https://twitter.com/Brett_Paci) Dave Lishansky, producer (https://twitter.com/DaveResonates) Show notes by Peter Chipman