Climate Adaptation and Mitigation
April 1st, 2025
3:00-4:30PM PT/4:00-5:30PM MT/5:00-6:30 CT/6:00-7:30 ET
Webinar Description
Speakers: Xavier Cortada, Artist, & Adam Roberti, Executive Director, Cortada Foundation
Speakers Bios:
Xavier: Xavier Cortada, Miami's pioneer eco-artist, uses art's elasticity to work across disciplines to engage communities in problem-solving. Particularly environmentally focused, his work aims to generate awareness and action around climate change, sea level rise, and biodiversity loss. He has created art at the North and South Poles to address environmental concerns at every point in between. Over the past three decades, the Cuban-American artist has created more than 150 public artworks, installations, collaborative murals, and socially engaged projects.
Cortada, winner of the 2024 National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine Excellence in Science Communications Award, often collaborates with scientists in his art-making. In 2007, as a National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists and Writers Program Fellow, Cortada used the moving ice sheet beneath the South Pole as an instrument to mark time; the art piece will be completed in 150,000 years. In 2008, as a NYFA-sponsored artist, Cortada planted a green flag at the North Pole to reclaim it for nature and launch an eco-art reforestation effort. His polar works led to the creation of "The Underwater," a community-led climate action campaign that has been recognized by the United States' 5th National Climate Assessment, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is the topic of Cortada's 2022 TED Talk.
Adam: Adam Roberti serves as executive director of the Cortada Foundation. In this role, Roberti works alongside Cortada to implement large-scale, interactive eco-art projects such as the Reclamation Project andThe Underwater – two initiatives featured in Cortada's TED Talk on community climate action. Through these ongoing public art interventions, he spearheads the foundation's collaborations with local schools, parks, libraries, businesses, and governments to engage and educate vulnerable communities, helping them prepare for the climate crisis and motivating them to get involved in local policymaking.
Roberti received a Bachelor's in Ecosystem Science & Policy and a Masters of Environment, Culture, and Media from the University of Miami, where he serves on an interdisciplinary research team focused on climate migration and retreat. Roberti has also shared his expertise through speaking engagements with Amnesty International, the Aspen Institute, the National Wildlife Federation, and multiple universities.
This workshop is designed to increase knowledge of climate literacy and support the open sharing of resources and the adaptations that educators make for their local students. This session will be 90 minutes and include a climate expert guest speaker, climate literacy support, aligned teaching resources collections, and collaborative time to iterate resources for your own context.