Location: Cambridge Community Center
Date: November 13, 2025
This event consisted of 5 main parts: an introduction, 3 different art workshops, and some concluding words. The introduction consisted of a presentation that introduced the Office of Sustainability at UMD, followed by defining terms such as climate art and climate anxiety, with some moments to discuss with our peers about our own feelings about the climate and climate change. It was a nice moment to discuss with SGC and ETE students, who already knew more than the average person about climate change.
Following the introductory segment, we were broken into groups to visit the stations. The first station I visited was a watercoloring activity. The watercolor paints were made of interesting materials, and the prompts for our art were very open-ended. I decided to paint this fish, though this being my first time working with watercolor and also being limited by color choice held back my full potential!
At the next station, there was an option to either fill out a pie chart with our emotions, or design a blank human body. I chose the latter, and decided to be a little silly. An option was to address how we felt about climate change using either medium, but I diverted from that somewhat, and just drew what came to mind in the moment, as seen below.
The last station I visited gave us a choice between making a zine or writing a poem. We were given the opportunity to research a climate issue of our choice and then report on it in a creative way. I decided to reflect off the experiences from the CPSG200 Colloquium and possible climate solutions when writing the poem below. It is meant to be a humorous take on sort of rejecting any pessimism, even in the face of real issues.
The Climate Art Workshop was a nice third excursion to attend. It gave me (and my peers) a chance to unwind from a long week and exams. Everyone in my group had a lot of fun making and sharing our pieces, and getting to know each other. I'd say that it was also moderately informative, as I got to learn more about UMD faculty and the Office of Sustainability, as well as some of the ETE Scholars' activities. Definitely a different feel from my previous two excursions, which were both museums, but it was a very welcome change.