Sarah Fortner

Science Education Resource Center (SERC)

Carleton College

I am the Director of Sustainability at Carleton College. Please contact me at sfortner@carleton.edu. My expertise is in climate change and environmental justice research, education, and local to national community building. I co-lead the Midwest Climate Educator Community of Practice supporting K-12, university, and informal educators in Midwest specific climate education action. Leadership roles include: membership in the NASEM Committee to Advise the U.S. Global Change Program, membership the U.S. National Committee for Geological Sciences (USNC/IUGS), AGU GeoHealth Leadership (Policy Committee Co-chair), AAC&U Civic Prompts Advisory Board, Council on Undergraduate Research Innovation & Collaboration Committee, and the National Association of Geoscience Teachers Traveling Workshop. I've led nationally recognized civic and sustainability program development funded through community collaboration and NSF InTeGrate.  My expertise includes helping faculty and programs move initiatives forward through collaboration.  See for example the Metal Redlining Network, the Redlining Education & Change Coalition & Springfield Lead Pollution.  I am a proud member of the Juneau Icefield Research Program Academic Council.  JIRP inspired me to launch my career.

Webinar Leader, Workshop Leader, Website Contributor

Website Content Contributions

Course Modules (7)

Unit 3: Natural and Agricultural Erosion Rates part of A Growing Concern
Students will identify their perceptions of erosion by examining images of mountain and agricultural landscapes and discussing which environment is more erosive. They will use geospatial figures to compare erosion ...

On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
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InTeGrate Developed This material was developed and reviewed through the InTeGrate curricular materials development process.
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Activities (2)

Personal temperature monitoring to build context for climate justice and community decisions. part of Service Learning:Activities
Climate change is often presented in disconnection from human experiences central to equitable and just decision making. In this activity students use PocketLab temperature probes to collect and analyze data on ...

Natural Hazards & Climate Change Risks part of Service Learning:Activities
× Students characterize how climate change impacts natural hazards and pose research-based solutions to the county Emergency Management Agency. Presentations require the use of local data, created figures, ...

Course (1)

Global Climate Change part of Service Learning:Courses
× Consequences of global climate change already include: increased drought, heat waves, flood intensity, glacial retreat, and sea level rise. Solutions are needed to reduce human impact on our climate system ...

Essay (1)

Mapping for Decision-making part of GET Spatial Learning:Blog
Addressing wicked challenges like climate change, natural hazards, and water resource planning requires working across and between time, space, jurisdictional, institutional, management, and social networks to ...

Conference Presentations (5)

Discovery Improvements for SERC Website Visitors part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2022:Program:Poster Sessions:Friday Poster Session
The Science Education Resource Center (SERC) hosts materials from over 120 geoscience education projects. However, the project-focused nature of the SERC website means that information is siloed and users have ...

Other Contributions (5)

Community and Political Engagement in the Geosciences part of Integrate:Teaching for Sustainability:Strategies and Teaching Themes:Connect to the World We Live In:Civic Engagement
This suite of pages was developed by Sarah Fortner, Wittenberg University with contributions from Rob Baker, Wittenberg University Community and political engagement in your earth or environmental science classes, ...

Communities

Workshop Leader (8 workshops)

Workshop Participant (16 workshops)

Webinar Leader