I Talked My Mom Into a 12-Week Course on Climate Action. Here’s How That Went.

Among the latest graduates of Terra.do’s Learning for Action course is my mom, Libby. She’s not on social media, but since she’s been learning about climate change from my colleagues and reading classwork I helped write and edit, this is a big deal for me.

My mom has been worried about the climate for years, or maybe decades. I remember her passing me articles by Elizabeth Kolbert, the author and journalist whose 2005 series, “The Climate of Man,” went on to win a National Magazine Award. I guess even before I’d declared a major in college, Mom knew climate would factor into my work.

Flash forward: Since 2021, I’ve been writing for Terra.do, the online school for people who want to learn and do more about climate change—in other words, people like my mom. After a few nudges, this year she agreed to attend a Terra open house online, where she met Greg Findley, the course director.

“Greg had an open and generous response to every question and didn’t hedge,” my mom told me later, and meeting him went a long way toward getting her to enroll. Still, she was nervous. Would a retired middle-school librarian from Alabama fit in? What if she didn’t get the hang of the tech? (Mom wasn’t a regular on, say, Zoom, where live class discussions happen.)

Here, I took comfort knowing that Terra will give you a refund if the course isn’t the right fit in the first three weeks—but I’m happy to report it proved to be a non-issue.

My mom’s journey with Terra

Mom graduated alongside roughly a hundred other folks as part of a cohort nicknamed the Pangolins. I won’t go too deep into the week-by-week journey of Terra.do’s Learning for Action course, but here’s a quick overview:

• It starts with the science of why the planet is getting hotter and the scary impacts we’re now seeing. 
• It then turns to solutions, like ditching fossil fuels while rapidly scaling up clean energy, as well as overhauling food and farming. 
• It also covers crucial areas like communications, politics, and economics while making their connection to climate less nebulous.
• A key throughline is climate justice, which stems from the recognition that people bearing the least responsibility for causing climate change are already bearing the brunt of its impacts. (This resonates deeply with my mom.)
• The assignments are mostly crafted to help fellows think through what, in their own lives, they can do for the climate.

Mom learned a lot. We talk about this stuff regularly—she’s always been a news junkie—and it’s clear her baseline knowledge and how she thinks about climate change has evolved. Even though 2025 has already delivered an outsized serving of unhappy climate news, she seems empowered, not immobilized.

What do I mean when I say Mom is empowered? I mean she’s stepping up action. For starters, she’s decided to be done with red meat, and is taking part in a community tree-planting effort. She’s also running the numbers on installing solar on the house. She even gave a thoughtful and well-researched presentation on climate action to other interested community members—something that would’ve been hard to imagine three months ago.

Community matters, no matter who you are

My mom’s climate journey with Terra is perhaps atypical. Many others arrive eager to prepare for and land climate jobs. (Our research has found they broadly succeed.) That said, I’m not sure there’s a “typical” fellow in the Learning for Action program. Since 2020, we’ve brought in folks from dozens of countries—everyone from software pros and lawyers working on career pivots to young people deciding what to study in grad school. 

One thing they all have in common is a desire to learn more about climate action. Stoking that curiosity and enlivening their sharing and discovery, in my mom’s case, was instructor Tarah Foster. Trained as a biologist, Tarah led Mom’s weekly small discussion group, or lab. “She made it very collaborative, very friendly,” Mom told me. “I felt like I could be my full self.”

Delving into the climate crisis can feel scary, and one thing that makes Terra.do special is its emphasis on community and heart. When I tuned into the Zoom graduation for my mom’s cohort, it was clear she’d personally connected with a LOT of people. A few gave her specific shout-outs. (Tarah messaged me afterward and also said my mom’s “passion and actions are such an inspiration.”)

For my mom, graduating was bittersweet—she’d come to look forward to learning and discussing all things climate each week with Tarah and others in her cohort. “The best community I have found. Period,” she texted me last week. “So grateful you said to go for it.”

Bottom line

Hi, it’s me, Dan, the person who wrote this. I took Terra.do’s Learning for Action course in 2021 and thought it was highly worthwhile, but then, of course I would—I work here. In 2025, after a few nudges, my actual literal mother also signed up and took it, and insists it was worth her time and money. (The only discount she took was early-bird pricing.)

Terra has helped thousands of people learn about climate change and what we can do to stop the planet from getting hotter. Many have gone on to land climate jobs—or to take climate action in their communities and homes. One of them is my mom. 

I’m proud of Terra, and of her.