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Cambridge is home to a wealth of research projects, volunteer organisations, and student-led initiatives connected to environmental concerns. Whether you would like to get involved with sustainability, energy efficiency or biodiversity related activities, or whether you are looking for a community of like-minded individuals, the links below should help you get started.
Librarian or teacher? We have also compiled a collection of free resources for you to use in your EcoLiteracy projects, including the materials of our bookgroup meetings, which are also available and free to use.
In this page you will find:
- Resources for bookgroups
- Resources for environmental educators
- Resources for librarians
- Student-led & community-led organisations and projects
- Local groups and Cambridgeshire-based organisations
- Departments, centres, graduate programs, research groups, and organisations within Cambridge University
RESOURCES FOR BOOKGROUPS:
Setting up and running a bookgroup:
- ‘How to start a bookgoup that doesn’t suck’, BookRiot
- ‘How to organise a successful bookgroup’, HuffPost
- ‘Running a bookclub’, BBC-Radio 4
Cambridge EcoFiction Bookgroup Discussion Materials:
- The End We Start From (Easter Term 2019)
- Sealed, Naomi Booth (Lent 2019)
- Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer (Michaelmas 2018)
Further reading ideas:
- Best 137 EcoFiction Books – GoodReads
- ‘Five of the best climate-change novels’ – The Guardian
- ‘5 important works of eco-fiction that you need to read’ – Literary Hub
- ‘2017 was a damn good year for environmental fiction’ – Earther
- ‘7 books that provocatively tackle climate change’ – Oprah Mag
- ’13 female “Cli-Fi” writers who are inspiring a better future’ – Sierra Club Mag
RESOURCES FOR ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATORS:
- ‘Education for sustainable development: Guidance for UK higher education providers‘ – free download of the HEA guide to incorporate education for sustainable development within the curricula.
- UK National Association for Environmental Education
- Center for EcoLiteracy – free lessons, articles and materials, to further ecological teaching and learning.
- Cornell University Civic Ecology Lab – environmental and civic ecology resources, free lesson plans, free ebooks and free online courses.
- Yale Climate Connections – daily broadcast radio programming and original web-based reporting, commentary, and analysis on the issue of climate change.
- Teaching Cli-Fi – a resource designed to aid instructors at colleges and universities teaching or planning to teach courses on cli-fi or climate change fiction.
- KQED Education – free lesson plans and online interactive resources.
- Climate Conversations: A Climate Change Podcast – the climate podcast from MIT, free for listening on Soundcloud.
- MIT Climate: Learn, connect, and act on climate change – an open experiment, with members from all over the world, addressing climate change through local action.
- Cambridge Climate Lecture Series – ongoing since 2017; all lectures available to watch online.
- DragonFly.Eco – the best resource online about ecofiction, ecopoetics, and ecostorytelling.
- Future Library Project – launched by artist Katie Paterson, the Framtidsbiblioteket in Oslo, Norway, will collect 100 books until their publication in 2114. Margaret Atwood was the first writer to contribute to the project.
- FutureCoast Project – collaborative storytelling project: contribute your voicemail about your idea of the future.
- Artists and Climate Change – bases of the project: ‘if we wanted to move forward and effect meaningful change, we needed to engage the other side of our brains. We needed to approach the problem with our imagination.’
- CimateCultures – creative conversations for the Anthropocene.
Further readings:
- ‘What is Eco-fiction?’ – Dragonfly.eco
- ‘A History of EcoFiction’ – Climate Cultures
- ‘Climate Fiction in English’ – Oxford Research Encyclopaedia of Literature
- ‘Crisis and creativity in environmental pedagogy’ – Edge Effects, digital mag from Center for Culture, History, and Environment (CHE)
- ‘How Climate-Change Fiction, or “Cli-Fi”, forces us to confront the incipient death of the planet’ – The New Yorker
- ‘Why science fiction authors need to be writing about climate change right now’ – author Charlie Jane Anders discuss the need to face the future imaginatively, Tor.com
- ‘Ecology, Storytelling, and the White Deer Terroir Project’ – author Jeff VanderMeer interviews biology professor Dr. Meghan Brown about her use of eco-storytelling creative writing techniques in her science class, GuernicaMag
RESOURCES FOR LIBRARIANS:
- IFLA Environment, Sustainability and Libraries Special Interest Group
- IFLA Green Library Checklist
- Green Libraries – a guide to resources and trends in sustainable library building design.
- Library Juice Press – list of titles dealing with Green Libraries issues
- Libraries and Archives in the Anthropocene: A Colloquium – papers and videos from the pioneer conference held in NYU in May 2017
Further readings:
- ‘Global Warming: Implication for Library and Information Professionals’, International Journal of Humanities and Social Science
STUDENT-LED & COMMUNITY-LED ORGANISATIONS AND PROJECTS:
- Cambridge Engage for Change Project
- Cambridge Climate and Sustainability Festival 2019 (Cambridge Climate Forum)
- Cambridge University Green Week
- Cambridge Zero Carbon Society
- Extinction Rebellion – Cambridge Group
LOCAL GROUPS & CAMBRIDGESHIRE-BASED ORGANISATIONS:
- The Cambridge Conservation Forum
- Cambridge Carbon Footprint
- Cambridge Friends of the Earth
- Cambridge Past, Present and Future
- Cambridge Conservation Volunteers
- Cambridge Natural History Society
- Green Cambridge
- British Antartic Survey
- Cam Valley Forum
- National Trust Wicken Fen
- Cambridgeshire Bird Club
- Royal Society of Biology – East Anglia Branch
- UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre
CU DEPARTMENTS, CENTRES, GRADUATE PROGRAMS, RESEARCH TEAMS, & ORGANISATIONS:
- Cambridge University Environment and Energy Team
- Cambridge Forum for Sustainability and the Environment
- Cambridge Climate Lecture Series
- Cambridge Conservation Initiative
- Cambridge University Botanic Gardens
Centres & departments:
- Cambridge Centre for Climate Change Mitigation Research
- Cambridge Centre for Climate Science
- Cambridge Centre for Environment, Energy and Natural Resource Governance
- Cambridge Centre for Global Food Security
- Cambridge Centre for Sustainable Development
- Department of Land Economy: Environment, Law and Economics
- Department of Geography Natures, Cultures, and Knowledges Group
- Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership
- Centre for Circular Economy Approaches to Eliminate Plastic Waste
- Energy Efficient Cities Initiative
- The Circular Economy Centre
Ongoing research:
- Research on biodiversity conservation
- Research on energy
- Research in global food security
- Research on sustainability and the environment
Full-time study:
- MPhil in Conservation Leadership (Department of Geography)
- MPhil in Engineering for Sustainable Development (Department of Engineering)
- MPhil in Environmental Policy (Department of Land Economy)
- MPhil in Planning, Growth & Regeneration (Department of Land Economy)
Part-time study:
- MSc in Interdisciplinary Design for the Built Environment (Departments of Architecture and Engineering)
- MSt in Sustainability Leadership (Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership)
- Postgraduate Certificate in Sustainable Business (Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership)
- Postgraduate Certificate in Sustainable Value Chains (Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership)
