 I'm Karen Strong, and I'm Lisa Jager. Are the mics not on? Yes, they are. And I'm Lisa Jager. Great. Here, because the conference organizers specifically asked for data about the impact of applied improvisation. And we looked at each other and said, we just did a program where we collected some data. We could talk about that for 10 minutes. Why don't we share that? So we're here to share information and data that we collected on how applied improvisation provides confidence and effectiveness in people having difficult conversations about social challenges, specifically about climate change. We're going to start with some questions. So first, please raise your hands if you are concerned about climate change. Keep those hands up and raise them if you have heard about climate change or seen it covered in the media in the last week. Great. Now, raise your hand or keep it raised if you've had a conversation about climate change in the past week that lasted longer than 60 seconds. All right. Now, raise your hand if watching what other people did affected your response. OK, you and me, I put that out because what other people say and do affect what we know and what we do about climate change. A bad because there are people who study how people talk about climate change because talking about it is key for catalyzing national. So scientists that study this conduct polls to explore people's beliefs and experiences about climate change around the world. So there is a big gap between concern about climate change and whether people are talking about it or not. And the people that study people's beliefs and experiences about climate change look at Americans and look at folks around the world. And they found a very big gap about conversations about climate change where only 5% of folks are having conversations often about it, even though 66% are concerned. 66% are actually not having at all or very rarely. I mean, you look globally, a majority of countries around the world, a majority of populations around the world are concerned about climate change, but they're not hearing about it regularly or at least weekly. And that's from any source, TV, newspaper, social media, or listening to conversations with friends and family. Next slide. Why is talking about it matter so much? Talking about it matters because when we talk about it, we're letting people in our sphere of influence know that it's important to us. And that influence has a big impact. The fact is, people don't take action or learn from experts and what they hear in the news. They learn to take action based on conversations that they have and information they get from people they know and trust. Next slide. So why aren't people having these conversations? Well, there are really valid barriers as to why we don't want to bring up climate change over a beer with some friends or at the family dinner table. Here are some of those barriers. I, myself, didn't feel like I was an expert, so I never brought it up because I didn't think I knew enough. Next slide. So how do I get over those barriers? Well, you know, it's improv. I knew as a volunteer at my local zoo, that that's the perfect place to be having those conversations and there's a lot of social science backing that up. I also knew we were not having those conversations. I also knew as a member of this community that applied improvisation offers exactly what we need to build those skills and the confidence to get over those barriers that Bobby described. So I joined up with Karen and Bobby and we developed a targeted climate communications course. We say it's what happens when a scientist, a project manager, and an improviser walk into a bar. We create Yes and Nature Collaborative. And Yes and Nature Collaborative's first offering was a five-week virtual course called Climate Conversations. And in that course, we used an interdisciplinary approach of communications theory, scientific research, and applied improvisation to teach people how to have more effective conversations about climate change, one-on-one conversations. Next slide. We put the word out to all of our networks to invite them to this open enrollment course and we attracted conservation scientists, environmental activists, and advocates to come together, play together for five weeks, and learn these applied improv skills. We followed and put the word out that maybe we could track seven or eight people and we got 30 people from around the country. And only a handful of them were people that we knew. Next slide. So our program talked about science and impacts and solutions. But because science isn't the barrier for effective conversations about climate change, we focused on the elements of communication that everybody can teach us. So our program is unique. We have other programs out there that talk about climate change and they give you a list of talking points. So this is not about what to say, but how you say it, how you show up when you say it. And we teach people using improv exercises to let go of what's in their head, to really focus on the other people that they're talking to, to use curiosity to find shared interests, to build empathy rather than judgment, and then to build connections to move the conversation forward. And we end by having folks practice using their own scenarios in a judgment-free, low-stakes environment. Next slide. And it worked! It worked! So here are testimonials from two people who noticed that they had better conversations when they let go of what was going on in their heads. It wasn't about what they knew. Next slide. Now that was some qualitative data. We're getting those testimonials. We also collected some quantitative data. So let's take a look at that and what we learned. We asked people to rate their ability to have confidence in having those one-on-one conversations about climate before our course and after. As you can see, before the course, over 22% said they were not confident that they had little or no confidence in having those conversations, and nobody came in on that far end of feeling highly confident. After the course, everything shifted. No one was left behind in that blue space, or a little to their confidence, and close to 90% said that they were either highly confident or very confident in having those conversations. Next slide. We also asked them to let us know of those skills that Karen just described, what were they actively using day to day when they walked out of our class each week. So close to 90% said that things like empathy, perspective taking, listening, and presence, in other words, how we show up to advocate for those things that we care about, those were things that they had immediately guided. The next highest rating might get the curious of it falls into the category of loosening up and having fun. Well, geez, isn't climate change kind of serious? Shouldn't we be having fun? Absolutely. Because letting go, having fun, is what allows us to come together, collaborate, build community, and problem solve, and that's exactly what we need to address critical challenges like climate change. Thank you, you're on top of our next slide. Yes, and we had quantitative data and also qualitative. So we collected responses that showed how much they appreciated and understood all of the exercises that you all know and love, and they know that they can apply them and use them and feel how powerful they are for listening, empathy, slowing down, and connecting with others. Next slide. We also got qualitative feedback on the application of the application, which made us delighted. They can apply improvisation to having better conversations about climate change. They can also apply those skills to having conversations about any difficult subject, as you can see here. Next slide. So we've collected some evidence that applied improvisation can help us have difficult conversations about climate change and other social challenges. And our data got the attention of the American Evaluation Association, which is a group that promotes majoring impact of educational performance. They invited us to write a blog post for the Earth Week series. And the whole reason why we had this data was because we had surveys and evaluations built into our five weeks program, where we're always getting feedback from our participants in measuring qualitative and quantitative questions. And those surveys and evaluations are what happens when an improviser works with a project manager and a scientist. Woo! Telling data about the power of climate improvisation. As for climate conversations, you all are applied improvisers. You have those skills that we just talked about. So you're ready? Go have the conversations. If you have a minute, start right here. Have in the hallway, at lunch, grab one of us. We are always practicing this. If you have 90 minutes, you can come to our morning at 10.30 to the nest to our workshop, where we will do several of our exercises. It will be very interactive, very participatory, about 80% interactive exercises, 20% of us talking and telling you a little bit more about how we put the program together. So please come play with us. And if you've got six weeks and it's resonated and you have a role where you need to up your conversation game, well, come join us this fall for our next program, which starts in September. You can scan the QR code for more information about that.