Roots of Representation

Episode 1 - Roots of Representation: Black Ecologies and Interdisciplinary Storytelling

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As part of the NSF Funded BlackRep4Kids project, we’ve launched a podcast series with our partners at ABF Creative to build awareness of the knowledge and skills required to create quality climate-related media for Black children. The podcast is called “Roots of Representation,” and it engages these topics through thought-provoking conversations with experts.


In this leadoff episode, host and project principal investigator Dr. Ed Greene speaks with Dr. Fikile Nxumalo about ways to bring the climate-related concerns and responses of Black communities into an educational curriculum dominated by colonial erasures and deficit framings. Dr. Nxumalo also mentions several resources for building climate change pedagogies that draw from and reflect the experiences of Black children – including:

  • The World is Ours to Cherish  – a picture book by Mary Annaïse Heglar that “gives kids an honest take on climate change and urges them to band together to help the planet.”
  • Black Ecologies – a zine (published by Rutgers University Press) that brings together scholars and activists to engage climate change at the community level in countries all across the world. 
  • “Centering Black Life in Early Childhood Education” – an article by Dr. Nxumalo that looks at what the practice of Black ecologies looks like in the classroom.
  • Learninginplaces.org – a network (led by indigenous scholar Megan Bang) that promotes outdoor, field-based science education among youth to help cultivate “equitable, culturally thriving, socio-ecological systems learning and ethical decision-making.” 
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    Roots of RepresentationBy Knology Research