The Role Of Higher Education In Addressing Climate Change

The Role Of Higher Education In Addressing Climate Change – Stephen Mulkey’s talk, Sid Dobrin and Bette Loiselle’s responses, and the Q&A session with the audience can be viewed online from the “ICC Videos” page.

The threats to the future of our species are manifold as we move further into a century characterized by accelerated disruption of climate, biosphere and human systems. Multiple evidence shows that natural conditions that were favorable to the development of civilization are rapidly degrading. We are approaching an event horizon at which disruption of Earth’s living systems will be irreversible on a millennial time scale. Climate change alters ecosystem function and undermines agricultural and industrial production, reducing the ability of the global economy to support a growing population.

The Role Of Higher Education In Addressing Climate Change

Higher education has an ethical imperative to provide the foundation of a sustainable civilization. Universities must transform themselves into institutions organized around transdisciplinary programs based on ecological and sustainability literacy. Undergraduate curricula should emphasize training in skills that will be needed to proactively adapt natural and human systems as they are transformed. The liberal arts are the foundation for these skills. Research and graduate education should produce professionals with the ability to holistically manage the dynamic changes of the biosphere and instead seek to preserve and restore natural systems to some desired past state. Every institution – political, legal, economic, medical and scientific – will have to be realigned to increasingly achieve a sustainable civilization. Sustainability science remains on the fringes of academic life, with few resources and little prestige. The status of higher education as part of the public trust has been destroyed, so to speak, and administrations are complicit in the privatization and commodification of the university’s services. Many faculty are still focused on the questions raised within their disciplinary specialties, not on tasks related to transdisciplinary problem solving. Reforming higher education to meet the challenges of accelerating disruptions will require a revolution in the purposes and structures of the university. Teaching, learning, scholarship and research for sustainability must become the highest priorities of the university. Collectively, the faculties have much of the power to implement these reforms.

Strategic Plan — Higher Education Climate Consortium

Stephen Mulkey has been a champion for interdisciplinary research, education and outreach in the environmental sciences for most of his career. From 2011 to 2015, he was president of Unity College (Unity, Maine), where he led the college’s adoption of Sustainability Science as a framework for its liberal arts programming. From 2008 to 2011, he was Director of Environmental Science at the University of Idaho. From 1996 to 2008, he was a member of the faculty of the University of Florida Department of Botany and Director of Research and Outreach/Extension for the UF School of Natural Resources and Environment. In 1990, he co-founded and later directed the International Center for Tropical Ecology at the University of Missouri in St. Louis founded. For more information about Stephen Mulkey and links to his scholarship and recent lectures, see this page.

Mulkey’s talk will be followed by responses from Sid Dobrin, Chair of the UF Department of English, and Bette Loiselle, Director of the Tropical Conservation and Development Program of UF’s Center for Latin American Studies. Dobrin is the author or editor of more than twenty books, including the forthcoming 

. Loiselle is the author of more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles in the fields of tropical ecology, conservation biology, and biodiversity, with particular emphasis on the flora and fauna of the Amazon rainforests of Ecuador.

This event is co-sponsored by the Department of English and Storm Richards and Jeanne Fillman-Richards. All ICC events are free and open to the public. No pre-registration is required. For more information, contact Terry Harpold .

Integrated Content And Language In Higher Education (iclhe)

“Higher Education during the Great Disruption” has been certified as a Green-level Sustainable Event by the UF Office of Sustainability, in recognition of “the highest level of effort being made for sustainability” related to event planning, purchasing, promotion,  transportation , and hosting. See this link for more information on the Sustainable Event Certification Program. Learn about recent findings on how rising temperatures are affecting education outcomes and hear how universities are taking action.

How does it affect educational outcomes as temperatures rise? Learn about recent research from Steve Commings of the Luskin School of Public Affairs, University of California – Los Angeles, which summarizes the short- and medium-term effects of climate change on education outcomes.

What can universities do to address climate change in their own work? Hear how universities are responding to climate issues in their work.

Relevant to staff and students of higher education institutions (HEIs) as well as researchers, policy makers and those involved in programming, participants will deepen their understanding of the evidence linking climate change and education, as well as some practical steps and lessons for how to speak with HEIs.

How Institutions Of Higher Education Can Address Climate Change

Hosted by USAID’s YouthPower 2: Learning and Evaluation Activity, the Higher Education Engagement and Transformation Community of Practice (CoP) serves youth, practitioners in youth-serving organizations, policy makers, and staff and students of higher education institutions.

Associate Director, Global Public Affairs, Luskin School of Public Affairs, University of California-Los Angeles on the Impact of Rising Temperatures on Education

Director of the Office of Sustainability at the University of Pennsylvania-West Chester on how the university has successfully integrated climate change strategies

We use cookies on our website to evaluate site performance and improve your experience. Click “ACCEPT” if you agree to the use of these cookies, or More information to learn more about how we manage information on our website. The results of our 2021 Climate Action Survey show that both students and staff believe education plays a major role in empowering them to take action against climate change. In our survey of over 3900 people:

The Role Of Higher Education In Advancing Carbon Pricing: A Preliminary Briefing For University Leaders

The clear message from these survey results is that staff and students support our stated aim to “provide opportunities for every student to study and work on climate-related issues”. The results suggest that university students and staff are seeking the climate change knowledge they need to equip them for a world in which they already live.

Since the declaration of a climate emergency in 2020, the University has worked hard to drive the process of embedding climate change across the University and into our education framework.

By this we mean to equip students with the knowledge, skills and confidence they need to respond to the uncertainty and rapid environmental and social changes that a changing climate brings. Through new programs like our Carbon Literacy Induction, we give students the information they need to integrate environmental issues into their learning right from the start.

In September 2021, Bath became the first university to include carbon literacy at induction for all new students. More than 5,000 students had the opportunity to learn about the carbon intensity involved in everyday activities, including travel, energy use and food consumption, and how to reduce emissions individually as well as across organizations and systems.

State Board Of Ed Oks New Teaching Standards For Climate Change, Sex Education

From this initiative, a number of students have expressed an interest in getting involved in our climate education strategy. Working with these students (the climate leaders), we co-created a set of educational principles that guide our roadmap for action.

Without this climate change education, students – and staff – will lack the knowledge they need to learn how their subjects are being changed by the climate crisis.

Given the increasing demand from students and employers for ‘greener’ skills, it makes sense to mainstream climate change education across all disciplines. Despite the increasing demand from students to learn about climate change, our survey shows that 19% of staff do not feel that they have sufficient knowledge about how the University should integrate climate-related content into their teaching.

Through our education plan, we work closely with the Center for Learning and Teaching to integrate Sustainability and Climate Change education into the Curriculum Principles and the curriculum transformation process by providing resources, support and guidance on curriculum and professional training. We also integrate carbon literacy into staff training.

Greening Education Approaches Worldwide: Learning From 80 Countries

SOS-UK research found in 2021 that a whopping 90% of students are either ‘concerned or very concerned about climate change’ – this is significantly higher than just a decade ago. As the urgency of climate change increases, so does student support for better climate education. Protests led by Greta Thunberg have shown how youth movements can have a huge impact on the wider community. Her commitment to stopping climate change has sparked great interest in students worldwide. And in fact, our survey results show that 8% of students and 13% of staff believe climate change should be the organizing principle for all degrees offered at the University, highlighting that parts of our community are already striving to address climate change in prioritizing their learning and teaching.

When working to bring climate change education into the University curriculum, the traditional approach of offering optional units is still useful, but no longer sufficient. These courses tend to attract students who already have a keen interest in the climate. But the climate crisis does not just affect one discipline or one person – it affects us all.

Working as the Education Lead for the Climate Action Framework, I am inspired by the depth of commitment from both staff and students to make it a reality. There is much more to do, but this survey demonstrates