Change with the Earth in Mind: Clay as Medium and Metaphor for Listening to the Earth

Abstract We designed and implemented a clay art-making workshop with teacher candidates called Change with the Earth in Mind, focused on listening to the Earth. Drawing on Bentz’s (Bentz, J. (2020). Learning about climate change in, with and through art. Climatic Change , 162 (3), 1595-1612). Framework, we sought to engage teacher candidates in, with, and through art that evokes climate change themes. Leveraging this art education experience as a research study utilising a/r/tography and narrative inquiry, we drew meaning from our observations of the workshops and the resulting art pieces. Here we feature composite narrative reflections on how the teacher candidates were preparing and working the clay, leaving traces, creating clay leftovers, and how we engaged with decay of the clay. The contributions of this study to teacher education, art education, and environmental education are in how clay art-making pedagogies can become a generative medium, and a generative metaphor, for human relationships to the Earth, and for climate education pedagogies.