Time To Act: Professional Learning Workshop on Climate Justice and Sustainability

EMPOWER | INSPIRE | CHANGEMAKERS

This one-day workshop will equip teachers with powerful drama-based tools to engage students in sustainability and climate justice education in a safe and supportive environment.

Using embodied, active learning, participants will explore how drama fosters empathy, imagination, and critical thinking, helping students envision and create hopeful, actionable futures.

For this workshop only, teachers will have a special opportunity to attend a performance and meet the creatives from The Paper Escaper, an innovative and fun children’s theatre from Terrapin Productions that introduces children to sustainability and critical and creative thinking.

The workshop is open to educators across disciplines, including science, humanities, and the arts, recognising that complex global challenges require interdisciplinary approaches. Through interactive activities and First Nations perspectives on connection to Country, teachers will gain fresh strategies to inspire their students and integrate climate education meaningfully into their classrooms.

Time to Act is more than a workshop—it’s a movement. Educators who attend will become part of a growing professional learning community committed to reimagining climate education. With limited spots available, teachers are encouraged to register early and be part of this vital shift in education.

A light lunch will be provided. Please notify us at creativelearning@geelongartscentre.org.au if you have any dietary requirements.

About the Facilitator: Jo Raphael

Jo Raphael (B Ed, M.Ed, PhD, SFHEA) is Senior Lecturer in Arts Education (Drama) in the School of Education at Deakin University. She is actively involved in teaching and researching in schools, community and higher education settings within Australia and internationally.

She is Artistic Director of Fusion Theatre, an inclusive community-based company, working in areas of disability in Dandenong. Her areas of research and publication include applied drama and theatre, drama as pedagogy, inclusive education and teacher education.

In her practice she applies drama as a pedagogy for learning in areas across the curriculum including science, humanities, and education for sustainability and within diverse contexts including cultural institutions such as museums and galleries.

Jo’s research draws on arts-based and participatory action research methods that are inclusive of participants as co-researchers and collaborative arts-based autoethnography as part of a commitment to developing a community of practice amongst teacher education colleagues. She is a Life Member of Drama Victoria and currently President of Drama Australia.