Education for Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience

Abstract

In the coming decades, climate change will have an increasing impact on human and natural systems. In a warmer world, accessibility to food, water, raw materials, and energy are likely to change. Human health, biodiversity, economic stability, and national security are also expected to be affected by climate change. A climateliterate citizenry is essential to build sustainable communities that are resilient to climate change—including extreme weather and climate events—and to protect fragile ecosystems. There are currently few coherent frameworks or models for effective climate change education (Mochizuki and Bryan 2015). Our team of climate scientists and science education specialists from the University of California, Santa Cruz and Berkeley, with the support of the Belmont Forum Global Challenge Program and assistance from ASLO’s Global Outreach Initiative have developed and tested an Education for Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience program as part of the Global Understanding and Learning for Local Solution (GULLS) project. Our education model is scalable and transferable, and builds on collaborations between scientists and educators to increase their capacity to share locally relevant climate knowledge through highly effective education and outreach efforts. This program strives to improve climate literacy to provide society with the scientific foundation to take informed actions to minimize climate impacts and prepare for changes that are already well underway. We have successfully implemented the program in South Africa, Australia, Madagascar, and Brazil, (and plan to offer it in India as well) focusing on “hot spots” of coastal warming in the Southern Hemisphere and building on existing collaborations (Hobday et al. 2016). Coastal communities in these regions that are experiencing a faster rate of coastal warming depend heavily on marine ecosystems and fishery industries, hence may need to adapt to a warmer climate and ocean to ensure their food security and future economies. In addition, the fisher communities in some of these countries are of low socioeconomic status and will be more vulnerable to the effects of climate change, both due to a higher percentage of dependence on fishery industries and Participants learning about density stratification — Ice cube activity.