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outreach

Outreach is a key activity of the CCB. We aim to build capacity, both inside our home organization as well as to the outside community, to communicate the many ways that climate- and weather-related issues influence society. There continues to be a large international component in this effort.

[from a college student who contacted Mickey Glantz by email]

...I was feeling like a "nothing-special" college student, not knowing how I could make a difference. I wrote Mickey Glantz an email asking for advice. He really helped me to begin with small actions, and now I lead an on-campus "green" organization.We are working closely with the Exploratorium in San Francisco to develop museum exhibits and activities based on climate-related themes, such as "What Makes Good Climates Go Bad" (see the Geotimes article, April 2005, to learn more about the concept).

CCB will also continue to organize and convene "Usable Science" workshops on topics of opportunity. CCB will continue to produce comprehensive print- and web-based workshop reports from these meetings. A workshop was held in Bangkok in March 2006 as the result of a grant from the Asia Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN). A website was created for the workshop. More information on CCB workshops is available on the Workshops page.

CCB will continue to produce scholarly books, as well as peer-reviewed and popular articles on climate-society- environment interactions. CCB will provide links and information to more popularly focused training and education materials.

Some Information about the "Three O's": Outreach, Output, and Outcome

Accountability is an important part of the success of any organization. The 3 O's, as an operational slogan, represents an approach to identifying measures of progress for CCB.

[from a second college student who contacted Mickey Glantz by email]

...I emailed Mickey Glantz about some ideas I had for starting an on-campus environmental group. He put me in touch with another student with similar goals. We have been trading ideas ever since!Outreach refers to activities that raise awareness about climate and water issues among university educators in the Physical, Biological, and Social Sciences, as well as the Humanities. Climate, water, and weather issues affect most human activities in obvious and not-so-obvious ways. If educators can be made aware of how climate-related processes influence the issues they are interested in, they will likely include such information in their classroom activities. The same applies to trainers of people already in the workplace.

Output refers to the success of the Center's activities as measured by the inclusion of climate-related information in reports and activities of participants in the various programs that can be developed, including “how to” programs on the best and most appropriate use of climate, water, and weather information. It also includes the publication of scholarly articles in journals, or seminars on campuses across the continent on such topics as, for example, adaptation to climate change.

Outcome refers to the impacts that remain, once the education and training activities end. It is the heightened capacity of individuals and institutions to cope effectively with climate change, climate variability, and climate, water, and weather high-impact anomalies and extremes. It is empowerment.