My pick of the BIG courses this month is a series from the SDG Academy which cover "the headline issues and a multitude of interdisciplinary topics related to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, a set of aims and targets adopted by member states of the United Nations in 2015."
They are run as MOOCs on the edX platform, free to enrol in and taken in your own time. I am leisurely working through the SDG 14 One Planet, One Ocean material, which is riveting, overwhelming and heartbreaking in almost equal measure.
If you want to be more informed about how the world is run and the overarching issues, these classes are an absolute gem.
My podcast pick of the month has to be the Folk On Foot interview with Cosmo Sheldrake, son of Rupert Sheldrake, a young musician who played with bird song, parrot fish sounds, Mongolian overtone singing, bones and more. Hearing his confidence, thoughtfulness and creativity gives me hope for sure!
The best non-fiction read was the memoir The Right to be Cold by Sheila Watt-Cloutier, who grew up in a fast disappearing Inuit culture and has spent her life fighting against pollution and climate change in a world that worries more about polar bears than about her people. Having gone to boarding school myself, I could relate to her stories of being separated from her family and home.
|