Climate change is not an oil change. Matt Baker-White, executive director of the Wild Rockies Field Institute, joins Scott Shepherd to talk about teaching college students to grapple with problems that adapt to whatever you do to them.
A student starts a 630-mile bike course across Montana sure she knows the answer to climate change. She finishes it with better questions. Matt shares the wind farm town hall that got her there, and why he thinks that is exactly what a good course should do.
In this episode:
• The difference between technical and adaptive problems
• Why Matt kind of hates the phrase "experiential education"
• Place-based learning with a dying whitebark pine grove and the Clark's nutcracker
• Building belonging in outdoor programs through scholarships, cohorts, and multiple narratives
• Two pieces of advice for aspiring outdoor educators: go live in a truck in Utah, and go learn to read a balance sheet
• Why advocating for public lands starts with knowing their histories
Chapters:
00:00 Welcome and wildfire smoke
03:11 Matt's origin story
07:34 What is the Wild Rockies Field Institute?
19:41 Technical vs. adaptive problems
22:54 What alumni do next
28:49 Why Matt kind of hates "experiential education"
36:02 Access and belonging
43:15 Two pieces of advice
51:00 Why land history comes first
Guest: Matt Baker-White, Executive Director, Wild Rockies Field Institute, https://www.wrfi.net
Episode page and links: https://www.wildwardinstitute.net/hopefulbynature
Hopeful by Nature: Stories of Kids, Community & the Natural World.
