U-M Climate Week 2026 View Other Sessions

Did you love The Mending Lab? Well we’re bringing it back this Fall in a whole new way with focused workshops and some refreshments while you learn.

One Monday a month, we’ll host a workshop with FPA to help you repair your much loved items that you can’t bring yourself to throw away yet. Try your hand at a new skill each month. Want to learn the skill but don’t have the garment? No worries! We’ve partnered with Wolverine Essentials to provide a limited supply of clothing or accessory items for you to practice on and make your own.

This month’s Mending Cafe, we’ll be teaching you how to do quick and easy repairs on your most loved jewelry pieces. Bring what you have and we’ll show you how to make it wearable again.

Extreme weather events, from flooding events and extreme heat to tornadoes
and extreme cold, do not affect everyone equally. LGBTQIA+ communities face compounding
vulnerabilities during disasters, which are shaped by housing instability, discrimination in
emergency services, and gaps in support networks. Drawing on recently published survey
research and ongoing focus groups with LGBTQIA+ Ohioans, this talk examines how gender
identity, sexual orientation, and other dimensions of social identity shape exposure to climate
hazards and associated negative health outcomes. The first half of the session will share findings on flooding and extreme heat experiences among Ohio’s queer communities, highlighting where existing disaster systems fall short and what queer-centered preparedness could look like. The second half turns from research to practice. Attendees will work through a short, hands-on climate emergency preparedness activity, choosing to focus on either a tornado or an extreme cold event. Using a guided worksheet, which will be available in print for in-room attendees and digitally for virtual participants, attendees will think through the essentials often overlooked in general preparedness advice. This activity will carry into an extended discussion period. Together, we’ll explore what it means to build disaster preparedness that centers, rather than overlooks, LGBTQIA+ communities left out of policy and practice.

Join UM’s Trash Club and the City of Ann Arbor’s Office of Sustainability and Innovation on the Diag for an A²ZERO Clothing Swap and build-your-own mending kit to kick off Climate Week!

About the Mending Kits
We will be passing out free, secondhand mending supplies (needle, thread, fabric) to build your own mending kit. Those who attend can learn simple fixes and stitches and continue repairs on their own with their new kit!

About the Clothing Swap
Clothing swaps are an opportunity to refresh your wardrobe, without buying new, and a chance to gift your gently used clothes to other members of your community. Each person can bring up to 10 items of clothing in good condition (no rips, holes, stains or unwashed items please!). Accessories such as bags, jewelry, and belts are also welcome. You can take clothing without bringing anything, or bring clothing without taking anything. A²ZERO Clothing Swaps are completely free events. For more information, visit luma.com/a2zeroclothingswaps.

Join us for a screening of the award-winning documentary We Are Guardians, a powerful story of hope and resilience in the face of the Amazon rainforest crisis. Directed by Edivan Guajajara, Chelsea Greene, and Rob Grobman, and produced by Academy Award winner Fisher Stevens with Leonardo DiCaprio as Executive Producer, the film offers an intimate look at the communities and ecosystems most affected by environmental destruction — and the global stakes tied to their future.

Before the film, join us for a conversation with internationally acclaimed Brazilian biologist and primatologist Dr. Julio Bicca-Marques. A professor of primatology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS), Dr. Bicca-Marques is the first Latin American scientist to receive the Distinguished Primatologist Award from the American Society of Primatologists. His decades of research on forest fragmentation, habitat loss, and infectious diseases affecting non-human primates have helped shape wildlife protection and public policy across Brazil and beyond.

Together, the screening and discussion will explore how collective action, community leadership, and informed choices can help shape a more sustainable future for the Amazon and our planet.