COCE 2025 Program

This session is fully virtual. Zoom Moderator: Katie Hunt

Virtual Sessions

This session is fully virtual. Zoom Moderator: Emily Montgomerie

Virtual Sessions

This is a fully virtual session. Zoom Moderator: Steve Depoe

Virtual Sessions

In this class, sister duo Siobhan and Isea O'Rourke will deliver a grounding breathwork and gentle movement class to get presenters settled in their bodies and thinking expansively about their work in the world. The class is designed so that participants can still wear conference clothing and continue on to their morning sessions.

This is a hybrid session. Zoom Moderator: Katie Hunt This session gathers collaborators for discussion and planning of an already scheduled 2025 special issue of the Western Journal of Communication to coincide with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference COP30, in Belém, Brazil.

Hybrid Sessions

Chair: Warren Cook

Chair: Geo Takach

Join a captivating interactive experience that will explore the magic of climate play through the 100 days of climate play challenge. Sally, one of the cofounders of Be The Future, completed 100 challenges over 100 consecutive days in 2024 in collaboration with many incredible organisations / communities / people - such as Taronga Zoo, Climate Salad, Daily Delight Disrupt at UNSW, Koori Kinnections and Goterra. From inviting strangers to join playful activities to going behind the scenes with awe-inspiring solutions, this challenge showcases the incredible breadth of climate play. In this interactive workshop you will: Explore the why, what & how of 100 days of climate play Replay ‘Day 71: Do a Lego Serious Play Session with Climate Play’ using Lego bricks to build your answers to questions from the Climate Action Venn Diagram by Dr Ayana Elizabeth Johnson Discover your play personality through an exploration of the work of Stuart Brown M.D. and Lindsay Braman Reflect on how you might embed play in your environmental work

Chair: Hannah Foley In this session, another round of artists involved in the conference will give six-eight minute, high-density overviews of their practice and how those practices connect to the conference theme. Artists are encouraged to use lots of visuals!

This is a hybrid session. Chair: Mariko Thomas Zoom Moderator: Katie Hunt

Hybrid Sessions

Chair: Samantha Senda-Cook

This 45-minute creative workshop session is part-performance, part-participatory, and part-provocation. Contamination is frequently understood in terms of harm: the introduction of a foreign substance or organism that disrupts the existing relationships of an environment. Synonyms of contaminant include contagion, corruption, disease, infection, toxin, pollutant, poison, and impurity. Its antonym is purificant. But outside of only the most controlled sterile laboratory environment—as identified by Alexis Shotwell (2016)—purity is a myth, and one frequently employed to uphold hierarchies and supremacies.

Science and art have always been viewed as separate fields, with the classic left or right side of the brain way of thinking. We are two PhD candidates who hold a dual degree in science and fine arts who were always asked the same question; why are you doing these degrees when they are so different from each other? For many outside these fields, the processes that scientists and artists take seem vastly different, however, our unique insight enabled us to realise just how similar they were, and why using the contrarian techniques of the other discipline could enhance each practice. This workshop is open to researchers, artists, and anyone in between who hopes to form collaborations and understand how they can broaden the scope of their practice through valuing other methods. This workshop is aimed at ~30 people and can be 90-120 minutes, where participants' backgrounds will inform the session delivery. There will be four parts, which combine lectures and activities.

Calling all graduate students and early career researchers…grab your lunch and come join us for a casual mentoring session. You’ll be joined by a group of senior academics who will be on hand to answer all your questions and provide advice about research, jobs, publications, extra opportunities, and how to stay involved in the IECA. The available mentor list, which will be updated as more names come through includes: Carrie Freeman Casey Schmitt Dara Wald Hanna Morris Kundai Chirindo Mariko Thomas Stacey Sowards Steve Depoe Tania Leimbach Tema Milstein Etsuko Kinefuchi Emily Plec

These excursions offer an opportunity to step outside the formal conference setting and engage with others in a different context. Designed to complement the conference theme, they provide a space to discuss ideas in a more open and informal environment while experiencing Tasmania’s landscapes and history firsthand. Beyond conventional sessions, these activities create opportunities for meaningful conversations and professional exchange in a relaxed setting. Some are paid; some are free. Pre-register for all excursions through the COCE site.

COCE Excursions

While Hobart plays an important role in current national and international polar research, it also has many historical associations with the Antarctic and Southern Ocean. We will begin our excursion by introducing the 19th century sealing and whaling industries, early voyages of exploration to the south - including those by Sir Douglas Mawson - scientific expeditions and places of contemporary Antarctic tourism and education. Then we will discuss the more immediate and urgent task of how do we, as Environmental and Communications practitioners, promote engagement with Antarctica - a place so alien and distant. Our excursion will continue as we drive to the summit of kunanyi/Mt Wellington*. From the summit we will look both into the SW of Tasmania (and therefore into Tasmania’s glaciated past) and to Storm Bay, the entrance/exit for the Southern Ocean - next stop Antarctica.

COCE Excursions

Tinderbox Hills Reserve is one of the Tasmanian Land Conservancy’s most accessible reserves, just south of Hobart on the D’Entrecasteaux Channel. The reserve has strong connections to the community thanks to a walking track that traverses it. Tinderbox Hills also has very high conservation values, located at a high point on the Channel within a complex of conservation properties, ranging from public to private conservation areas/reserves. The reserve is a hotspot for the nationally endangered bird species, the forty-spotted pardalote. Conservation efforts surrounding the bird have led to some wonderful science communication examples. This will be an easy bushwalk of approximately 2 hours, in which you will hear about the TLC’s model for land restoration and reserves on private land, and how they engage with the community. You may also spot one of the elusive, tiny pardalotes, one of Australia’s smallest - but feistiest - birds.

COCE Excursions

The Hedberg is one of Tasmania’s most ambitious cultural and arts infrastructure projects - a $110 million building delivered through a collaborative partnership between the University, the Australian and Tasmanian Governments and the Theatre Royal. Co-located with the Theatre Royal, The Hedberg integrates performance hubs and venues, rehearsal spaces, creative workshop ‘laboratories’, front and back of house spaces and adaptive reuse of the heritage-listed Hedberg Garage. The experience will also include the main stage of the historic Theatre Royal (1837), Australia’s oldest working theatre. Take a behind-the-scenes look with the architect Elvio Brianese from LIMINAL Studio.

COCE Excursions

REGISTER HERE This free excursion gives you an opportunity to spot a platypus and see and sample the home of Tasmanian beer. This easy walk follows Hobart Rivulet upstream from the city to the foothills of kunanyi / Mount Wellington. Along the way keep your eyes on the water or water’s edge for the platypus that call this rivulet home. There are four large interpretation panels along the way that will take you deep into the life of Hobart’s platypus. They also include helpful tips for spotting these elusive animals. If you would like more information about efforts to protect and conserve Hobart Rivulet Platypus head to: https://hobartrivuletplatypus.org/ . This is also an historically interesting walk. Until the 1860s, Hobart Rivulet was the main source of fresh water for the new settlement and so the colony grew up along its banks. You will pass the World Heritage Listed Female Factory, an institution used to house convict women and their children. Further upstream is the historic Cascade Brewery. The walk will depart from Hamlet Café in Molle Street, Hobart. At just over five kilometres return/round-trip, we will allow two hours for slow meandering to give us the best chance of spotting a rivulet platypus. When we reach Cascade Brewery , participants can stop to sample a flight of the 200-year-old brewery's beers, and/or then walk/Uber back to the conference. The Hobart Rivulet Track is level with a slight uphill grade. The main path is wheelchair accessible, but getting closer to the water often requires walking across sloping ground and might be challenging for those with mobility issues.

COCE Excursions

Introduction delivered by Dr. Claire Konkes. Viewing of the documentary The Giants about Bob Brown and about Tasmania’s ancient forests. Dr. Bob Brown will be on hand for Q & A. Bob Brown is internationally celebrated for his activism, with a career that has significantly shaped environmental politics in Australia and beyond. As a founding member of the Tasmanian Wilderness Society (now The Wilderness Society), he led the historic campaign to Save the Franklin River, a pivotal moment in Australia's environmental movement. As the first leader of the Australian Greens, he advanced policies on climate change, forest conservation, and human rights, significantly growing the Greens' influence in Australia and the world. Bob has authored several books, including a memoir and poetry collections, and has received prestigious awards such as the United Nations Environment Program Global 500 Award and the Goldman Environmental Prize. As one of Australia’s living legends, Bob continues to be an influential voice in environmental advocacy as the founder and president of the Bob Brown Foundation. Tickets to this event are also available to the public so COCE participants will have the opportunity to mingle with locals. Free to all those registered for the conference. One additional step of registration is required for this event -- see the registration desk for the link.

This session is fully virtual. Zoom Moderator: Katie Hunt

Virtual Sessions

This session is fully virtual. Zoom Moderator: Patrick Jamar

Virtual Sessions

This is a fully virtual session. Zoom Moderator: Emily Montgomerie. In this interactive workshop, participants will engage with nature therapy tools and practices designed to support sitting with and understanding the powerful emotions that arise in response to climate change. The workshop will offer structured guidance on processing climate-related distress, fostering resilience, and connecting with activism. Through a blend of contemplative practices, community discussion, and direct engagement with the natural world, participants will develop techniques to manage and transform eco-anxiety, grief, and frustration into constructive and sustaining energy for personal well-being and climate action.

Virtual Sessions