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Listen Up! The Role of Podcasts for Understanding Environmental Issues as a Social Construct
An approach to understanding environmental issues, including non-sustainable consumption, as a social construct, through the group exercise of making a 10-minute podcast with professional journalistic support.

 

By: Juliet Fall and Karine Duplan (University of Geneva)

Session type: Multiple sessions, Undergraduate level, Large size

Topics:

  • Communication (environmental journalism and media studies)y

  • Learning from practitioners

  • Critical thinking

  • Human geography

 

Introduction to the teaching example:

Through the process of making a podcast, students will be encouraged to investigate the ways in which environmental challenges are social constructs and to explain their findings clearly and engagingly.

 

Students go through five tasks in this teaching example.  

 

First, they use an assessment matrix to examine podcasts on environmental matters. 

Second, students start working in smaller groups of three to create their own podcast with an environmental theme based on their observations. 

Third, they receive instruction from experienced journalists on how to operate the technical equipment needed for podcast production in a workshop setting. 

Fourth, students work with several case studies that demonstrate how environmental concerns are presented and produced in the media using examples like biodiversity, climate change, and wilderness preservation,  while simultaneously working on the podcast.

Finally, students share the podcasts they created as a result of their effort in the final phase and grade one another using the same matrix they used for the initial (first) activity.

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