Target Audience: High School, College/University
Curriculum Areas: Music, Arts, Environmental Science
Creative Commons License: Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 International
About the Curriculum
The curriculum shared here utilizes Terra Nostra, a multimedia symphony about climate change. Variations of the curriculum were developed by Kim Davenport for use in several 100-, 200- and 300-level non-major music courses at the University of Washington, Tacoma. More than 50% of UWT undergraduate students are the first in their family to attend college, and nearly 60% are students of color.
Depending on the exact level and subject-matter of each course, Terra Nostra was utilized in support of a variety of learning objectives:
- Building students’ listening skills, through the combination of music and video, and through the analysis of music without words
- Drawing interdisciplinary connections between music and other disciplines
- Providing an example of music created to raise awareness about a timely social issue
Although the assignments shared here were designed for music courses, they could easily be adapted for inclusion in courses in other disciplines, and this is indeed one of the motivations for sharing this curriculum through a Creative Commons license.
About Terra Nostra
Terra Nostra is a 30-minute multimedia symphony about climate change composed by Christophe Chagnard with poetry by Emily Siff and a film by Charlie Spears. It was created to Engage, Educate, Inspire, and Empower people to move for personal and policy change to protect our earth. It is an evocative combination of orchestral music, poetry, and film, intended to invite broad discourse and inspire concrete initiatives in diverse audiences in ways science alone may not.
It premiered in June 2015 to critical acclaim, was revised in 2018 and recorded in 2019 by Seattle Music with the composer conducting. The first iteration of the film, containing the music and accompanying visual imagery, was released in July 2019.
The latest version of the film, released in 2022, adds the poetry, read by the poet, Emily Siff, and international climate activists Xiye Bastida and Ayisha Siddiqa.
Contained in this document
The following chapters include example assignments, resources available for use in implementing these assignments, and samples of student reactions to Terra Nostra.
