Stories Rooted in Healing the Planet

Dr. Bonny Norton (FRSC) is a University Killam Professor and Distinguished University Scholar in the Department of Language and Literacy Education, UBC. Her primary research interests are identity and language learning, critical literacy, and the Global Storybooks project. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the American Educational Research Association, and was elected BC Academic of the Year in 2020. Her website is: http://faculty.educ.ubc.ca/norton/

Dr. Liam Doherty is a language educator teaching in the Department of Asian Studies and a Research Associate in the Department of Language and Literacy Education at UBC, with a particular interest in digital literacy and multilingualism, corpus linguistics, translation and identity, language socialization and heritage language learning, and the use of open data-driven digital tools to help better understand, learn, and teach languages.

Sara Florence Davidson (sgaan jaadgu san glans) is a Haida/Settler Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University. She has a PhD in Literacy Education, and her research focuses on Indigenous pedagogies, literacies, and stories. With her father, she is the co-author of Potlatch as Pedagogy: Learning through Ceremony and the Sk’ad’a Stories, a picture book series which is based on family stories and highlights Indigenous pedagogies and intergenerational learning.

Elin Kelsey, PhD is an award-winning author, speaker and thought-leader for the evidence-based hope and climate justice solutions movement. Kelsey’s influence can be seen through the popularity of her book, Hope Matters: Why Changing the Way We Think Is Critical For Solving The Environmental Crisis (2020) and in the hopeful, solutions-focus of her clients, including the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and other powerful institutions where she has served as a visiting fellow including the Rachel Carson Center for the Environment and Society, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Kone Foundation, the Salish Sea Institute, the Cairns Institute and Stanford University. She co-created the viral social media campaign #OceanOptimism and is currently leading intergenerational collaborations with climate influencers to make evidence-based hope more shareable online. A best-selling children’s book author, her picture books reveal the intimate connections between humans and the greater than human world. Her work as a podcast host, film writer and exhibit creator celebrates the resilience that exists within ourselves, and across species. Kelsey is an Adjunct Faculty member of the University of Victoria School of Environmental Studies, and Western Washington University’s School of Environment. In 2020 she co-created an international network of researchers and practitioners working within the emerging academic discipline of Climate Emotions. She regularly leads workshops for environmental organizations, climate activists, and educators on evidence-based hope and serves as an author/artist in residence for international schools. For more, please visit https://www.elinkelsey.org.