Climate Break Podcast: Educating the Public About Climate Solutions
Chandra Middleton, Staff Researcher
Center for Law, Energy and the Environment
Applications for Spring 2024 are closed for this project.
The Center for Law, Energy, & the Environment’s (CLEE) Climate Break podcast brings listeners stories of climate progress and interviews with climate innovators from California and around the world, in under 2 minutes. Our episodes are solution-oriented and almost entirely produced by Berkeley students—including undergraduates, law students, and journalism students—working closely with climate law and policy experts at the University of California, Berkeley. Students do everything from identifying and developing episode ideas to scriptwriting and audio editing, all of which develops their public interest storytelling, journalism, and technical skills.
Climate Break has recently partnered with NPR-affiliate KALW (91.7 FM San Francisco Bay Area) to broadcast our podcast three times a week. For this, we produce a new episode each week. In anticipation of an expansion in our audience and reach to additional NPR affiliates, we are undertaking a social media campaign to boost our online presence and have recently revealed a newly rebuilt website.
Climate Break brings together team members who have diverse expertise and interests: some are interested in science communication, others climate journalism, and still others podcasting. This highly collaborative team mostly works together remotely, but in-person “study jams” have been known to happen. Team members also work closely with Ken Alex and Ethan Elkind, directors at CLEE, and climate specialists across campus, thus offering the opportunity for the student to build their network of peers and mentors. Chandra, in particular, is happy to remain in touch even after the student’s time with Climate Break has concluded.
Role: Role: Join the Climate Break team of (mostly) Berkeley students to produce an episode each week for the Climate Break podcast! Students should be prepared to commit at least 5 hours per week, which includes time attending a required weekly team meeting. While it is not necessary to commit to more than 5 hours per week, more hours can easily be arranged.
Tasks: The student’s role will be to assist in the production of weekly podcast episodes. Except during crunch times, the student may choose which tasks they wish to take on. The primary tasks, however, will be research-based: proposing climate change solutions as topics for our episodes; researching climate solutions and potential guests to develop an interview packet, researching critiques of proposed episode topics/climate solutions, and identifying further reading for our audience—including resources for learning the basics of the underlying science. Other tasks might include guest stewardship; writing episode scripts or blog posts; editing audio tracks; and publishing on WordPress and Simplecast.
Learning Outcomes: Chandra Middleton, the Senior Research Fellow running the project, will provide instruction—aided by experienced team members—and mentorship. The student will gain critical analytical skills in the process of researching climate solutions. The nature of our podcast requires team members to think broadly about the climate solution to bring multiple societal dimensions to light for our audience. For example, what knowledge underlies the solution presented and what resources might the general public use to dive deeper into why the presented solution is a solution? What are the benefits, drawbacks, and critiques of an episode’s solution? How can the general public be involved with or support seemingly out-of-reach solutions, such as coastal flooding for one who lives in Iowa?
Identifying potential solutions also stretches the student’s understanding of what a solution to climate change is, deepening their understanding of the dimensions of “climate change” as an issue. Because climate change is already upon us, Climate Break begins with the assumption that human adaptation to a changing environment is also a solution to climate change. What do solutions start to look like when technology and human society are understood as equally essential to combating climate change?
The student will also develop highly transferrable skills like the ability to convey complex technical topics in ways that are accessible by the general public; working with narrative to create a compelling story; and editing audio.
Qualifications: None required. Chandra and the team are happy to train you!
Hours: 3-5 hrs
Off-Campus Research Site: The research and publication of Climate Break is conducted completely online.
Related website: https://climatebreak.org/
Related website: https://www.law.berkeley.edu/research/clee/