Ken Tamminga

Learning and envisioning under climatic uncertainty: An African experience

Learning about and embracing change and uncertainty are essential for responding to climate change. Creativity, critical reflection, and cogenerative inquiry can enhance adaptive capacity, or the ability to anticipate, prepare for, and respond to adverse future impacts. However, precisely how learning about change and its driving forces occurs and how experiences are combined with envisioned yet indefinite prospects of the future are poorly understood. We present two linked methodological tools—an assessment of drivers of change and participatory scenario building—used in a climate change adaptation project in Ghana and Tanzania (ALCCAR). We discuss opportunities and challenges of such iterative learning. Our findings suggest that joint exploration, diverse storylines, and deliberation help to expand community-based adaptation repertoires and to strike a balance between hopelessness and a tendency to idealize potential future realities.

Technology-supported cross cultural collaborative learning in the developing world

Technology (especially the Internet) has been touted as an important tool for cross-cultural exchange. In this paper we report on some of the challenges and successes of using a cross-cultural collaborative learning intervention design in rural Himalayan villages using participatory video. We describe some of the unique constraints of designing appropriate educational technology for the developing world, and we propose a fourfold framework to help identify local constraints for the design of such technologies.

FOOD PRODUCTION ON A LIVING WALL: PILOT STUDY

ABSTRACT Living walls and other vertical green infrastructure on building surfaces provide regulating, supporting, and cultural ecosystem services in the built environment. Green walls can also generate food as a provisioning ecosystem service. This article discusses a pilot study monitoring the productivity of a 7.5 m2 outdoor living wall system planted with produce crops during the 2015 summer growing season in State College, Pennsylvania, USA. Irradiance, water usage, and soil moisture data were also collected to assess context and performance of the living wall system during the growing season.