We’d like to share a podcast with you from our friends at Black Representation: Authoring STEM Stories for Climate Risk Preparedness (BlackRep4Kids), a National Science Foundation-funded project led by Knology, in partnership with the Highlights Foundation, the National Black Child Development Institute, and the Association of Children’s Museums. The project brings together Black researchers and practitioners from a variety of fields (including climate science, developmental psychology, informal learning, and children’s media) to collaboratively develop methods and strategies for creating children’s climate media that helps Black families and their children discuss, prepare for, and respond to a multitude of environmental threats.
The podcast’s hosts, Crystal Allen and Christine Taylor-Butler, are longtime friends and supporters of the Highlights Foundation.
Highlighting Diverse Black Experiences of Climate Change through Children’s Literature
In this episode, guest host and leadership team member Crystal Allen asks Christine Taylor-Butler about strategies for writing stories that acknowledge the diversity of Black Americans’ experiences of climate change, and about incorporating STEM content into children’s media in ways that promote hope, agency, and a knowledge of how to prepare for and respond to a wide variety of climate-related threats.
In this episode, Taylor-Butler also mentions several resources for broadening the representation of diverse youth in children’s literature, including:
- Whoosh! Lonnie Johnson’s Super-Soaking Stream of Inventions – in this STEM picture book, author Chris Barton and illustrator Don Tate provide a biography of Lonnie Johnson, inventor of the SuperSoaker.
- Abby in Orbit – written by Andrea J. Loney, this series tells the story of Abby Baxter, a third-grader whose parents are scientists at the OASIS International Space Station.
- NASA – a government agency whose research focuses not only on outer space, but on planet Earth and the various species whose lives are being impacted by climate change.
- International Tiger Project – A project launched by Wildlife Conservation International whose work looks at how conservation efforts can help mitigate the effects of climate change.
Listen to the Podcast
