HREI presenting workshop and lecture on crisis information communication Wednesday
Dr. Scott Slovic
The Human Rights Education Institute will present a free workshop, followed by dinner and a lecture by a leader in the field of environmental humanities Wednesday.
Dr. Scott Slovic, a professor at the University of Idaho, will present the workshop and lecture. Slovic has published more than 300 articles and written or edited 27 books. In recent years, his work has focused on the challenges of communicating information about humanitarian and environmental crises.
Sienna Templeman, an undergraduate student at the University of Idaho, organized the event. She said it’s vital to inform the public about local and regional environmental issues, as well as to empower individuals to voice their concerns.
“It’s not just bad water in Flint, Mich., or the Dakota Access Pipeline. It’s also things like the Bunker Hill Superfund Site in the Silver Valley, which is right in our backyard,” Templeman said, referring to how pollution from Bunker Hill’s smelter stacks led to some of the highest blood-lead levels in local children ever documented in North America in the 1970s and 1980s. “A lot of people don’t know how that affected people and how it came to be. Being informed about these issues is a civic duty.”
The three-hour workshop, “Speaking Truth to Power,” will explore the concept of personal testimony writing and help participants develop skills to participate effectively in public hearings, as well as write letters to the editor and to government officials. The goal is to help participants gain the confidence to tell their stories and share their concerns as writers and public speakers.
After a free dinner following the workshop, Slovic will speak about communicating information and emotion in the context of environmental justice.
“It’s important for people to be educated about these issues so they can go on and tell other people and misinformation will stop being spread,” Templeman said.
The workshop begins at 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday, followed by the lecture at 6 p.m. These events are free and held at the Human Rights Education Institute, 414 West Fort Grounds Drive, Coeur d’Alene.