Taking aim at climate change
Climate change is a global issue, recognised by scientists and laymen alike as one of the key challenges for the 21st century. It is also a multifaceted problem with social, physical, economic and policy impacts that are difficult to address from a single perspective.
In light of this, ‘Responding to climate change complexity’, a project developed at the University of Tasmania (UTAS) is helping students’ grasp the complexity by developing a cross-disciplinary approach to the way the topic is tackled.
A genuinely collaborative effort, ‘Responding to climate change complexity’ is also being implemented at The University of New South Wales (UNSW), Murdoch University and the University of Wollongong (UoW).
“As at many institutions, climate change was being taught all over the University of Tasmania in a variety of disciplines, but it was often being taught purely from the science perspective or purely from the social policy or economic perspective,” says project leader Kristin Warr.
What was needed was a more integrated approach.
“Students need to have a broad understanding of how complex [climate change] is and if they don’t have that knowledge they have to recognise that they don’t, where they can go to get it and who they need to talk to,” explains Warr.
Beginning with the creation of an interdisciplinary community for teaching academics who are passionate about the issue, the project has grown to also encompass student-led initiatives.
At UTAS this meant getting students involved with the development of climate change curriculum.
“An expression of interest was sent out by the project team and 50 to 60 students from two campuses responded,” explains Warr.
These students then gathered together to think about what they had been taught already as part of their discipline studies, as well as about what information they believed they were missing out on. Bringing these two strands together with pedagogical input from teaching academics resulted in ‘Making Sense of Climate Change’, a third-year geography unit successfully taken up by the university and run in both the 2010 and 2011 academic years.
At project partner institutions Murdoch, UNSW and UoW there have also been other successful student-led initiatives including: surveys, an art exhibition, the creation of baseline knowledge videos for broadcast on YouTube, and collaboration between law and science students to understand how scientific and legal perspectives interact.
When asked about advice for others seeking to bring a sustainability focus into the higher education environment, Warr is adamant that the power of collaboration can ensure the ultimate success of any program.
“The thing with environmental education is that there are always champions. These champions tend to drive the projects and carry full responsibility and accountability for them. The problem is that when these people get burnt out or move on the programs fall apart.”
What is needed, argues Warr, is the development of communities of practice where responsibilities can be shared and ongoing impacts sustained.
“Find an issue people are really passionate about and form a group based on it. Then it doesn’t necessarily become one person’s job to maintain it, it becomes a whole-group responsibility... It’s [our] commitment to collaboration that has been fundamental to absolutely everything we’ve done.”
More information about the ‘Responding to climate change complexity’ project can be found on the Leadership Networks for Change website. Project resources are expected to be made available in early 2012.