—THE ORIGINS OF UC-CSU NXTerra —

In 2019, the UC-CSU KAN reformulated itself as UC-CSU NXTerra, a knowledge action network (KAN) and digital platform for climate educators.

READ MORE about NXTerra >>>

Visit the NXTerra digital platform.

Read about UC-CSU KAN at UCOP (Office of the UC President)

UC-CSU KAN Comprehensive Final Report, 2017

Faculty Leadership at UCSB

Summer Gray
Professor of Environmental Studies
University of California, Santa Barbara

John Foran
Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies
University of California, Santa Barbara

Ken Hiltner
Professor of English
University of California, Santa Barbara

David Pellow
Professor of Environmental Studies
University of California, Santa Barbara

Purpose (2016 – 2019)

The UC-CSU Knowledge Action Network (KAN) for Transformative Climate and Sustainability Education and Action was launched in 2016-17 to provide California educators a collaborative framework to facilitate interdisciplinary sustainability and climate education and impactful action.

The KAN hopes to accelerate California educators’ abilities to offer climate change, climate justice, carbon neutrality/greenhouse gas emissions reductions, and sustainability education to all Californian students in ways that are culturally contextualized, responsive and sustaining, as well as actionable and relevant to their futures.

Going forward, we hope that the network will also enable California educators to engage across and beyond our educational institutions for transformative climate action over time.

At this point, the KAN is a collaborative effort of UC and CSU educators to scale and intensify California students’ literacy in climate change, climate justice, carbon neutrality/greenhouse gas emissions reductions, and sustainability.

Reaching the UC’s carbon neutrality goal and comparable CSU climate targets requires more than physical infrastructure alone.

A key principle of our effort has been to affirm the essential roles that social scientists, humanists, educators, the arts, and culture in all its forms can play alongside the STEM fields in advancing transformative climate action.

We hope to expand and develop the roles of California college faculty and K-12 teachers in supporting their students to act on climate and in reaching beyond the campus to engage various publics to accelerate the shifts we must make for a livable and just future.

Dense networks of active and knowledgeable faculty and students at each UC and CSU campus, bound together with easy networking facilities, are foundational to accomplishing the communications, redirecting administrations and management, and generating the educational and engagement changes needed to drive forward our campuses’ climate and sustainability transformations.

The KAN connects educators from across the UC and CSU who are engaged in questions and practices related to the educational aspects of these transformations and who are interested in the rapid diffusion of climate and sustainability education to broader California audiences.

Beyond this, the knowledge gained by interacting with our peers throughout the California public higher education system contains the potential for multiplying our impact as educators at every level, from kindergarten through college.

The Future The key challenge moving forward is to nurture and build the UC-CSU Knowledge Action Network we have established.

This knowledge action network (KAN) is a work in progress. The strategy design informing the network’s process has been and remains emergent and dependent upon the active collaboration of both UC and CSU faculty.

We hope in the future to expand to other college-level teachers and to work with K-12 teachers in California and around the world.

If you want to be in touch with us, send an e-mail to John Foran: foran@soc.ucsb.edu