The LearningPlanet Festival – Phoenix is the inaugural convening of individuals and organizations in the metropolitan Phoenix area that seeks to inspire and enable thought and action at the intersections of sustainability and learning futures. It is a part of the 2023 LearningPlanet Festival: Learning to Take Care of Oneself, Others, and the Planet. Read on to discover the full list of dedicated sessions!
24 January
08:45 to 09:30 – Keynote panel “Learning to take care of oneself, others and the planet” (online)
Because it is only through self-care that we can power up and help each other, and because it is only by fostering a sense of interconnectedness and shared responsibility that we’ll be able to create a more sustainable future for all, we need to think holistically. From Tibetan Studies to science fiction and beyond, some of the brightest minds in their fields will explore new paths to respect our own needs in order to be able to support one another and collaborate for a transition to a thriving planet. Get inspired!
09:30 to 10:30 – Turn it Around Workshop (online)
How can art be used as a tool to transform our climate crisis? “Turn It Around! Flashcards for Education Futures” is a global creative tool that works to communicate the environmental visions of youth with policymakers and educators.
12:00 to 13:00 – Who is environmental justice education for? Curriculum creation by/with/for marginalized youth
If you are a youth activist, teacher, researcher, community member, policy maker, or education practitioner broadly speaking – and especially if you are a member of a systematically marginalized group – we welcome you to co-create environmental justice curriculum with us in this interactive workshop.*
25 January
08:00 to 09:00 – From Citizens to Planetizens: Mobilizing the Power of Socially Engaged Art to Reimagine Climate Futures (online)
The workshop will bring together educators, artists, and student leaders to share their visions for how shifting our perspectives from citizenship to planetizenship might undo hierarchies and borders, engaging across gender, age, class, race, ability, species, machines, and matter in order to collectively remake our planetary futures.
09:00 to 10:30 – Critical Transitions in Higher Education for Planetary Health (online)
Hear ‘inspirations’ sourced from members of the Circle across three critical areas for universities:
- transforming teaching, research and operations,
- engaging with local communities, and
- leveraging student voices.
This is hosted by the Transitions in Higher Education circle, bringing 20+ organisations together to collect their key insights, questions and recommendations for the transitions of Higher Education, across sustainability, interdisciplinarity, civic engagement and more.
11:00 to 12:00 – Whither the Human? Computing and Indigenous Knowledge Against the Inhuman Sciences
Drawing on findings from Geoghegan’s recently published “Code: From Information Theory to French Theory” (Duke, 2023), this talk situates these critiques as part of a larger, century-long effort by progressive intellectuals to reform the humanities with knowledge from computing and Indigenous culture. Geoghegan’s visit is co-sponsored by ASU’s Center for Philosophical Technologies and Environmental Humanities Initiative, along with BRIDGES Sustainability Science Consortium and the LearningPlanet Festival.
12:00 to 13:30 – Manifesto for Decarbonizing Research Methods
This 90-minute session event will bring together researchers and students in an interdisciplinary collaborative workshop to create a manifesto for decarbonizing research methods at ASU. Please come prepared with your computer and your ideas – and be ready to write!
15:00 to 16:00 – Reimagining Education for Planetary Futures
Join members of Learning Futures Collaboratives at the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at ASU to explore how they are mobilizing forces to address these challenges through newly created, transdisciplinary networks of academics, students, and community partners.
16:00 to 17:00 – Book Launch: Open Mapping towards Sustainable Development Goals voices of YouthMappers on Community-Engaged Scholarship
This collection amplifies the experiences of some of the world’s young people who are working to address SDGs using geospatial technologies and multi-national collaboration. Authors from every region of the world who have emerged as leaders in the YouthMappers movement share their perspectives and knowledge in an accessible and peer-friendly format.
26 January
08:00 to 09:30 – Education, Sustainability, and Global Futures Visioning Session
Join us to co-design a vision for an academic degree program that would fundamentally change the role of education in addressing the ecological crisis. The Learning Planet Institute and Arizona State University are mobilizing forces, networks, and expertise to build a program that would help transform our passion for global ecological justice into impactful education careers necessary for shaping planetary futures in which both the planet and people can survive and thrive.
11:00 to 17:00 – Launch of Regional Center of Expertise (RCE) Greater Phoenix
At a time when Greater Phoenix is facing urgent sustainability challenges, many people and organizations are working hard to create opportunities for sustainability education for everyone in our community.
To support the efforts of these organizations and strengthen connections for local action, we have been part of a community wide effort to establish a Regional Center of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development, formally recognized by the United Nations University and UNESCO. We want to recognize the contributions of many community partners that have been part of this effort, and we would love to invite you to celebrate with us as we continue working together for just and sustainable futures of the greater Phoenix area.
13:30 to 14:30 – Partners for Future: Creating Access to Sustainability Education in our Region
14:45 to 15:30: What are the Human Sciences? Re-imagining the Human in the Wake of Planetary Crisis
16:00 to 17:00: Policy Meets Art: A Dialogue among Education Policymakers and Youth Activists about Climate Futures
27 January
06:45 to 07:00 – 100 Million Learners Initiative (online)
In the new global economy, where technology has displaced so many workers, obtaining a future-ready skillset is a necessity for both personal and professional opportunities. Yet too many of the world’s learners lack access to quality education and 21st-century skill sets, a problem that will only be exacerbated in the coming years.
Thunderbird School of Global Management, home of the world’s No. 1 ranked Master’s in Management, and Arizona State University (ASU), ranked No. 1 for innovation in the U.S., launched the 100 Million Learners Initiative to help address this worldwide challenge. It is the boldest and most ambitious global education initiative in higher education history. The initiative offers three global entrepreneurship and innovation certificates digitally in 40 different languages across the globe and at no cost to the learner. Women and young women will account for 70% of the 100 million learners the program will reach worldwide.
Here is the link to the program: https://thunderbird.asu.edu/lifelong-learning/100-million-learners
08:00 to 09:30 – Education, Sustainability, and Global Futures Visioning Session (2) (online)
Calling all teachers, youth activists, educational and community leaders and anyone with a passion for education and environmental justice!
Join us to co-design a vision for an academic degree program that would fundamentally change the role of education in addressing the ecological crisis. The Learning Planet Institute and Arizona State University are mobilizing forces, networks, and expertise to build a program that would help transform our passion for global ecological justice into impactful education careers necessary for shaping planetary futures in which both the planet and people can survive and thrive.
09:00 to 14:00 – From Ikigai to a desirable future workshop for high-school students
ASU is hosting a group of high school students from the Greater Phoenix Area in its brand-new Walton Center for Planetary Health. They will start by working on their personal Ikigai, a Japanese concept meaning “life direction”, “purpose in life” and then come together to spend most of the day defining together what a desirable future would look like and how to act to make it happen. Come as you are! Take this opportunity to reflect on what is important to you! Get inpired to take action for the future you want!
12:00 to 13:00 – Back to the Future of Educational Research (online)
Whether COVID-19 or global climate change, human migration, or the rise of artificial intelligence – education is increasingly being transformed, often in unpredictable ways, this transformation needs to be guided by sound research, research that is grounded in context and history and yet with an eye towards designing for the future. And as both the OECD and UNESCO reports asserted, there are multiple potential future scenarios for education, and accordingly, no single “correct” direction for the future of educational research.
13:00 to 14:30 – Participatory Green Budgeting
In this session, participants will explore the participatory budgeting (PB) model to address sustainability and climate change issues. PB is a community-led, civic action model for participatory decision-making in public budget allocations.
28 January
10:30 to 11:30 – Planetizens in Art at the Learning Planet Institute
We invite you to spread your visions of how we can shift from a citizen to a plantizen. We will be using different art forms: text, visual, media, music, dance, or any other responses – you name it! Be creative! We will share these visions with the world!
Organizing Committee
Alejandra Enriquez, Andrea Weinberg, Ann Nielsen, Carrie Karsgaard, Charlotte Simunek, Dilraba Anayatova, Elizabeth Quigley, Gustavo Fischman, Iveta Silova, Jordan King, Katja Brundiers, Keti Tsotniashvili, Molly Cashion, Margaret (Peggy) Parker-Anderie, Saiarchana Darira
Co-organisateurs
Greater Phoenix Regional Center of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development
Learning Futures Collaboratives on Education, Sustainability and Global Futures
Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College
Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory™
College of Global Futures School of Sustainability
