{"id":309,"date":"2021-10-26T12:58:21","date_gmt":"2021-10-26T19:58:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/hsandergreen\/?p=309"},"modified":"2021-11-16T09:24:17","modified_gmt":"2021-11-16T17:24:17","slug":"tiny-ecology-project-4-climate-change-in-my-front-yard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/hsandergreen\/tiny-ecology-project-4-climate-change-in-my-front-yard\/","title":{"rendered":"Tiny Ecology Project #4: Climate change in my front yard"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Close up of a birch tree. Photo by Universal Eye on Unsplash.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Once upon a time<\/strong>, a birch tree stood sentry in front of my home. It started small, as all trees do, but by the year 2021 it stood at least ten meters tall. It had papery bark that peeled easily and knots in its trunk that told stories of its past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everyday<\/strong>, the birch provided gifts to us, the residents of the house that sat behind it. In the spring, it hosted chattering birds who added music to our days and gave us a reason to stare idly out the window. In the summer, it cast shade on our home, providing valuable cooling. In the fall, it dropped its leaves onto the ground below. We raked the leaves and added them to our garden as mulch. In the winter, it provided a cozy location for tea with a friend. Chairs were set out in the snow under its bare canopy, next to its thick trunk – the perfect location for a good conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until one day,<\/strong> climate change started to disrupt the way that the birch gave to us throughout the seasons. Over the next twenty five years, everything changed for this tree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of climate change, <\/strong>far fewer birds visited us in the spring. For some, their migration patterns were disrupted. Sadly, some bird species didn\u2019t survive at all. Their young hatched too early in the spring, when plentiful food wasn\u2019t yet available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of climate change, <\/strong>the tree stopped providing enough cooling for our home in the summer. We became uncomfortable in the intensifying heat and had to find other means of cooling our home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of climate change, <\/strong>the tree grew less leaves, as it was stressed by changing conditions. We lost some of the precious mulch that we used to spread over the garden in the fall, which helped our vegetables grow robust the following summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of climate change,<\/strong> we set chairs out for wintertime tea in sloppy mud, rather than crunchy snow. The tree dripped water on us, melting when – in the past – it would have stood frozen for months on end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until finally,<\/strong> the tree could no longer survive. <\/strong>It was not able to satisfy its thirst for water. It did not have the stability it needed – season after season – to know when its leaves should bud, grow, and drop. It did not know when to store energy and when to spend it on new growth. It missed the snowy winter and the chattering birds. It slowly began to die off from the inside, and then suddenly limbs ten meters off the ground were succumbing to stress and falling dramatically to the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And everyday after that, <\/strong>for a long time, <\/strong>the climate continued to change. Where the tree used to stand, new life began to grow. Grasses and shrubs overtook the area. Changing landscapes were something that we, as humans, had to get used to. Trees died off and new species – sometimes other trees, or grasses, or bushes – took their place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*** This post was structured based on the idea of the story spine, which helps stories take shape with a set of prompts. The prompts I used were based on those in Cunningham\u2019s (2017) work. The story spine idea was originally developed by Kenn Adams in How to Improvise a Full-Length Play: The Art of Spontaneous Theater<\/em> and popularized by Emma Coats, who worked for Pixar, in a series of tweets (Cunningham, 2017). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond its use in helping a storyteller develop the structure of their story, Rotman (2017) showed that the story spine can be used in a workshop setting with people from different disciplines to \u201cfoster empathy, engagement, creativity, and reflection\u201d (p. 304). Rotman also noted that, in these settings, storytelling using the story spine can act as a \u201csocial lubricant\u201d (p. 308). Thinking in this context, the above post could be used in a workshop setting – for example, with different stakeholders in my community – to convey my feelings and thoughts about climate change in the local context. I wonder what other personal climate stories I could tell by using the story spine?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cunningham Bigler, K. (March 1, 2017). Jumpstart your story with the story spine. Curiographic<\/em>. https:\/\/www.curiographic.com\/blog\/2017\/2\/18\/jumpstart-your-story-with-the-story-spine<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rotman, S. (2017). \u201cOnce upon a time\u2026\u201d Eliciting energy and behaviour change stories using a fairy tale story spine. Energy Research & Social Science<\/em>, 31<\/em>, 303-310. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.erss.2017.06.033<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once upon a time, a birch tree stood sentry in front of my home. It started small, as all trees do, but by the year 2021 it stood at least ten meters tall. It had papery bark that peeled easily and knots in its trunk that told stories of its past. Everyday, the birch provided […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":959,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cals502"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/hsandergreen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/hsandergreen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/hsandergreen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/hsandergreen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/959"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/hsandergreen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/hsandergreen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":326,"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/hsandergreen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309\/revisions\/326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/hsandergreen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/hsandergreen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/hsandergreen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}