Interdisciplinary Responses to Climate Change in the University Classroom

Abstract

This case report describes a novel bridge course developed by the authors, entitled, What If They're Right? Individual Responses to Climate Change. The course challenges university students to experiment with undertaking both individual and larger-scale responses to climate change. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are interwoven throughout the weekly class meetings, providing the requisite background in environmental stewardship and sustainability necessary to contextualize and analyze the students' response projects. Recognizing that complex problems like climate change are best approached collaboratively, the authors jointly teach the class, introducing both a scientific and a philosophical point of view, and placing quantitative and qualitative learning on equal footing. The highly interdisciplinary and experiential nature of the course provides an educational opportunity that empowers students to make meaningful contributions with respect to both climate change and to the Sustainable Development Goals.