Join us at 6:00 pm EDT on May 2 for a presentation by Damiana Pyles and Morgan Blanton on teaching climate change through picturebooks.  Renewal credit certificates are available for educators.

About their talk: Children’s literature offers ways to help students grapple with complex topics in a deep yet developmentally appropriate manner. Choosing books for children to address tough issues can be daunting. This session will focus on climate change and the ways in which teachers can use picturebooks to teach young children about this complex STE(A)M topic. We will explore different types of picturebooks about climate change and discuss a framework for choosing picturebooks around a guiding question. Attendees will have a chance to practice applying the framework to picturebooks during this session. This session will be applicable to preservice teachers, parents of young children, and in-service practitioners, such as classroom teachers and media specialists.

About the speakers: Damiana Gibbons Pyles is an associate professor in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction at Appalachian State University where she teaches courses centered around media, pedagogy, and identities. Her scholarship explores how identities are represented and/or (co)created multimodally through various media. Currently, she is working on a book examining how Netflix’s original programming for children and teens sets up identities in its interface and its content. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her family and experimenting with recipes and projects she learns from watching a lot of YouTube and other streaming media.

 Morgan Blanton is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Reading Education and Special Education at Appalachian State University. She teaches courses that focus on children's literature, literacy for learning, and media for adolescents. Her research interests center on children's literature and the ways in which it is used for instructional purposes in the upper elementary and middle grades. Currently, she is working on a project that examines teachers' perspectives of graphic novels and text complexity in grades 4-8. Outside of her work-related interests, Morgan enjoys spending time with her family, reading good books, and traveling to different national parks.