WUICAN Events

June 5, 2025
EARTH: An Interfaith Exchange
Pacifica Institute
6:30 – 8:00 PM

Join WUICAN’s Interfaith Climate Action Working Group for a conversation about earth with a focus on soil stewardship and environmental justice. Learn about native plants and urban farming. Participate in a tree-planting ceremony at the Pacifica Institute, which promotes interfaith dialogue from a Turkish Muslim perspective. Learn more and RSVP

May 22, 2025
Cultivating Consciousness on Acjachemen and Tongva Homelands
Social and Behavioral Sciences Gateway, UC Irvine
6:00 – 8:00 PM

Sacred Places Institute for Indigenous Peoples and UC Irvine’s Research Justice Shop warmly invite you to join a conversation about community-university collaborations aimed at reclaiming and reconnecting with Indigenous and place-based histories in Orange County, including on lands currently owned by UC Irvine.

May 15, 2025
Plant Walk and Drawing Workshop
Crystal Cove Environmental Study Loop
11:00 AM – 12:00 PM

WUICAN partners are invited to join Tongva biologist and artist Samantha Morales Johnson Yang for a Plant Walk and Drawing Workshop at Crystal Cove’s Environmental Study Loop in Moro Canyon. Participants will explore native plants and learn about their ecological and cultural significance, accompanied by a hands-on plant drawing workshop. RSVP here

April 15, 2025
Tongva Ecology and Our Relationship to Fire
UC Irvine, HIB 135
12:00 – 1:00 PM

Please join WUICAN’s Living with Wildfire Initiative for a talk by 2025 C-LAB Artist-in-Residence Samantha Morales Johnson Yang, an Indigenous scientist and enrolled member of the Gabrieleno Tongva San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians. Light refreshments will be served. RSVP

March 21, 2025
MAATHAAW: The Fire Within Us Film Screening
San Diego Natural History Museum
7:00 – 9:00 PM (doors open at 5 PM)

WUICAN’s Living with Wildfire Initiative hosted a screening at the San Diego Natural History Museum for MAATHAAW: The Fire Within Us, followed by a panel discussion led by the filmmaker Andrew Pittman (Ipai Kumeyaay). The Indigenous-led film documents the relationships of Southern California Tribes with fire.

March 15, 2025
WUICAN Land-Tending Day
Laguna Canyon Foundation
9:00 AM – 12:00 PM

Hosted by WUICAN partner Laguna Canyon Foundation, the land-tending event is a way for network members to build relationships with partners, brainstorm ideas for future events and build capacity for LCF by working together on land restoration at their headquarters.

February 12, 2025
FIRE: An Interfaith Exchange
Temple Beth El of South Orange County
7:00 – 8:30 PM

Join WUICAN’s Interfaith Climate Action Working Group for a conversation about fire with a focus on Indigenous approaches to fire stewardship. Learn about wildfire prevention and recovery. Join together in collective learning and healing, and find out what you can do to make a difference. Learn more and RSVP

February 3-4, 2025
California Climate Action Initiative State Agency Briefing and Grantee Convening
Sacramento, CA

At this gathering on “Meeting California’s Climate Challenges Together,” participants highlighted the importance of collaboration and consultation on community-engaged research and partnerships while leveraging technology. WUICAN was featured at two-panel sessions on i) Water Resources Management and Drought, and ii) Land Use Planning, Housing, and the WUI. WUICAN partners Research Justice Shop and Sacred Places Institute participated, with SPI presenting at a plenary on “Overcoming Inertia and Inequity: The Shifting Landscape of Community-Academic Climate Action Research.”

November 19, 2024
AIR: An Interfaith Exchange
The Jain Center of Southern California
7:00 – 8:30 PM

Join WUICAN’s Interfaith Climate Action Network at the Jain Center of Southern California for a conversation about air that features reflections and presentations by local religious leaders, UCI scientists and environmental justice organizations. Learn about the Jain tradition as well as how air quality inequitably affects different communities. Read about the event.

October 20, 2024
Climate Justice: A Sacred Mandate
The Ecology Center, San Juan Capistrano

Rabbi Marcia Tilchin (Jewish Collaborative of Orange County) moderated a panel on interfaith climate action for the Ecology Center’s Dwell Festival: A Sukkot Experience. Sarah Kimball (Environmental Collaboratory, UCI), shared her oak restoration work with students at the Delhi Center in Santa Ana. “They learn how to be scientists and they also have a chance to be out there in oak woodlands,” Kimball observed. “Hope is a discipline,” said SueJeanne Koh (St. Mark Presbyterian Church), citing abolitionist Mariame Kaba. “Cast your ballot,” replied Savannah Lipner (Dayenu). ”It’s hoping with your hands.”

September 26, 2024
WUICAN All-Partners Convening
UC Irvine
9:00 AM – 3:00 PM

Art met science at the first WUICAN in-person, all-partners convening where forty participants from the twenty-four partner organizations including Tribal Nations, university researchers, land managers and environmental justice groups gathered to share their work and forge new connections. Blank puzzle pieces became a canvas for imagining participants’ relationships with fire. The Stewardship and Governance by/with Native Nations and Members of Indigenous Communities committee and the Climate Science and Education committee led sessions to plan for the future while building connections through hands-on networking activities. The day concluded with a giant sun print that recorded hands and plant specimens, testaments to WUICAN members’ desire to work together toward community-driven climate solutions.

August 11-17, 2024
UCHRI Climate Action Summer Institute
Humanities Gateway, UCHRI
UC Irvine

Eight graduate students from seven UC campuses received summer dissertation fellowships in 2024 to participate in an eight-day Climate Action Summer Institute at UCHRI on the UC Irvine campus. Skillshares by each graduate student promoted creative knowledge exchange and revealed the entangled threads linking their work across disciplines. Workshops on feminist research methods, public writing and speculative fiction by visiting scholars introduced tools of public inquiry beyond the dissertation. During the summer, participants were paired with WUICAN community partners to work on communications projects, such as integrating Indigenous perspectives into a guide to the San Joaquin Marsh and a “Toxic Tour” story map of Santa Ana, California, among others.

June 14, 2024
UC Irvine Ecological Preserve Walkthrough
UCI Ecological Preserve
3:00 – 4:00 PM

UCI’s Center for Liberation, Anti-Racism & Belonging (C-LAB) and its “Coastal Aesthetics, Environmental Justice and Indigenous Futures” research cluster are thrilled to announce an upcoming site visit to the UCI Ecological Preserve led by Samantha Morales Johnson Yang, a Tongva biologist, learning ethnobotanist, science illustrator, and the Land Return Coordinator for the Tongva Taraxat Paxaavxa Land Conservancy. This event is co-coordinated by two WUICAN partners, the UCI Environmental Humanities Research Center and the Living with Wildfire Initiative.

May 31, 2024
Connecting Fragmented Landscapes
UC Irvine, Doheny Beach Room ABCD
Workshop: 8:30 AM – 4:30 PM
Reception: 4:30 – 6:00 PM

UCI’s Environmental Collaboratory, CLIMATE Justice Initiative, and WUICAN are hosting a spring workshop, Connecting Fragmented Landscapes, on Friday, May 31, 2024, in the Doheny Beach Room ABCD on the UCI campus. During the Workshop, we will consider partnerships and strategies for reconnecting our fragmented ecological, organizational, and environmental education landscapes.

May 9, 2024
WATER: An Interfaith Exchange
St. Mark Presbyterian Church
6:00 – 7:30 PM

Join us for this Interfaith Climate Action event featuring scientists and water district managers in conversation with community leaders from different faiths. Participate in a Water Communion and learn how climate change impacts different communities. Read about the event.