The Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University hosted a communication workshop on July 29, bringing together more than 20 partners from The New York Climate Exchange. The event, held on Governors Island, focused on helping researchers, practitioners, and community leaders develop skills to communicate climate change issues through personal stories.
Facilitators from the Alda Center led participants in practical exercises aimed at improving communication strategies. The session emphasized the importance of clarity and empathy in making complex topics accessible and actionable.
“To start conversations about climate — the risks, the impacts, the science, all of it — we have to engage empathetically if want people to grasp the reality of what we’re facing,” said Laura Lindenfeld, dean of the School of Communication and Journalism and executive director at the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science. “That means understanding where people are coming from and sharing information in ways that resonate with their lived experiences.”
The workshop was designed to train over a dozen participants as Climate Story Ambassadors. These individuals will be prepared to collect and share narratives that highlight how climate change affects human health. They are set to launch The Exchange’s Climate Stories Project during NYC Climate Week at the end of September.
“This is really a project about centering real people’s stories about climate,” said Shaina Horowitz, director of programming innovation and acceleration at The New York Climate Exchange. “So not just talking about scientific facts and information, but really creating a space for people to ground the talk of climate in their own personal experience and bring these abstract issues down to a human level. Personal stories matter because they change mindsets. They inspire people to action. They inspire a sense of empathy and connection,” she added.
The partnership between the Alda Center and Stony Brook University’s School of Communication and Journalism supports this approach by combining academic research with practical training.
“I think we have this amazing opportunity with the School and the Center to help research matter more and to actually ground research in understanding what people need,” Lindenfeld said. “And that requires state of the art communication — that’s what both the Center and our School bring to the table within and beyond the academy and to industry.”
Participants engaged in improv exercises intended to build comfort with discomfort as part of developing authentic connections when communicating about challenging topics like climate change. Harlow Brumett-Dunn, urban resilience fellow at The Exchange, noted these activities helped encourage connection among attendees. Jessie Bard, oceans, policy, and partnerships fellow, highlighted how these exercises helped focus on being present while communicating with community members.
The project underlines that while climate change is often discussed using technical language or abstract concepts, its effects are deeply tied to individual experiences related to health outcomes. Aja Two Crows, community initiatives associate at The Exchange, explained that short audio recordings will capture these personal narratives linking health impacts with climate change solutions.
“We started the storytelling project because we were seeing a lot of interest in the space of how communication can really support climate action,” Two Crows said. “For this project, the way in which we’re really thinking a lot about collaboration is through our partners at The Exchange. We are founded through partnership, and we work through partnership — including one of the most important partnerships: Stony Brook University.”
Looking ahead, organizers plan for these collected stories to form an expanding digital archive available as part of The Exchange’s future hub on Governors Island scheduled for opening in 2029.
Founded at Stony Brook University in 2009, the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science trains scientists and health professionals across disciplines so they can better explain their work outside their fields—including communicating effectively with policymakers or members of media—by partnering closely with academic units such as Stony Brook's School of Communication & Journalism.