We are thrilled to bring you the second National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute held at Sonoma State University: The Future Earth Story Project, a collaborative education project for the future we want for the planet we call home.
The Future Earth Story Project is a combined format, 3-week summer institute. The Institute includes both in-person and virtual convenings for 25 English language arts (ELA) teachers of grades 6-12. The institute will be held virtually for two meetings in late April/early June and in-person from June 15-27, 2025, on SSU’s campus as well as through field trips to various locations in northern California, and again virtually for four follow-up meetings in August.
Our journey into the Future Earth Story begins with a virtual meeting with author Lewis Hyde, whose book, A Primer for Forgetting: Getting Past the Past, sets us up to explore the relationship between memory and forgetting. Then, we enter into the world of the dystopian cli-fi classic by Octavia E. Butler, The Parable of the Sower. Set in 2024, Butler’s story centers on a young Black woman, Lauren Olimina, who must re-envision her ecological relations–to the natural world and its inhabitants. For Butler, the absence of care and communalism contributes to the ecological crisis most dramatically experienced by those who are profoundly impacted. Butler’s “future earth story” offers possibilities for reimagining our environmental relationships and the future.
We will construct our own future stories throughout the Institute through collaborative story-making. Learn participatory reading and literary response strategies you can apply to your classrooms with Literacy Unbound methods. Literacy Unbound, co-founded at Teachers College, Columbia University by co-director Erick Gordon and Adele Bruni in 2012, invites students to immerse themselves in the world of a book through movement, drama, and voice. The embodied approach builds community, inspires risk-taking, and deepens engagement while promoting empathy, close reading, and textual analysis.
The Future Earth Story Project aims to shift beliefs about what is possible, fostering hope and the vision to reimagine our collective future. By questioning which traditions can guide us in this reimagining and how we can move from reimagining to effective action, the Future Earth Story project seeks to empower educators to guide students toward new, hopeful possibilities for all life on our planet. To reach a wider audience, we will film parts of the institute to demonstrate the process and tell the story of our forays into telling the Future Story Project. This innovative approach to disseminating the transformative experiences of NEH K-12 Summer Institutes will be led by award-winning indie documentary film producer John W. Comerford.
Thank you for your interest in our project. We look forward to hearing from you.
Fawn, Erick, & Kim