Climate change education Workshop

Climate Change is one of the most significant issues of our times and a key impeding factor affecting the pace of sustainable and equitable development of every country. Educating forthcoming generations about the causes and effects of global climate change is imperative as implementing solutions depends on their scientific, technical, and leadership abilities. As the climate change problem is complex and requires multi-disciplinary approaches to the solutions, existing cross-disciplinary collaborations between geoscientists, biologists, and ecologists must be broadened to assimilate input from the human and behavioural sciences, from law and politics, and even media and the creative arts. In this context, there is an urgent need to develop new education modules and pedagogical methods to inculcate environmental understanding in today’s students, in such a way that, every future citizen would be better equipped to identify appropriate solutions to mitigate climate change and reverse its impacts.

About the workshop

In this context, a climate change education project, TROP ICSU (https://tropicsu.org), has been initiated as a global project with generous support by the International Science Council. It aims to improve awareness of climate change and the science behind it among students by developing teaching aids for teachers at the high school (secondary school) and undergraduate (Bachelor's degree) levels. Our educational resources, with detailed step-by-step descriptions to use them in regular lectures (see: https://tropicsu.org/resources/lesson-plans/), are designed in such a way that in addition to bringing climate-related examples and case studies to the core curriculum, they also enhance conceptual understanding of the topics in basic sciences, mathematics, social science and other disciplines. The latter would incentivize teachers to use our resources.

To make educators/teachers acquainted with this initiative, to provide an overview of how to use these educational resources in their regular teaching, and to seek their collaboration to review/improvise and expand our education resources, we have envisaged a workshop for high school and undergraduate teachers of all disciplines.

Brief Outline

About the workshop : This workshop is designed to (i) introduce the participants to digital educational tools and innovative teaching practices in their classroom to teach topics in different disciplines using climate-related examples, case studies, and activities and (ii) demonstrate a new pedagogical approach to help improve the understanding of climate change among students while simultaneously enhancing their conceptual understanding of topics in different disciplines.

In this interactive workshop, participants will be introduced to the TROP ICSU project and its digital educational resources. An overview of the review, feedback, and contributions from teachers across the world will also be provided. Experts from various international science unions, United Nations agencies, and project partner organizations will share their views on the project and its resources.

Participants will be invited to share their inputs and expertise from the pedagogy and discipline perspectives on ways to teach topics from different disciplines using climate-related activities, examples, and case studies.

Hosted by : IUBS

Conducted by : TROP ICSU Project Team and its partners

For whom : High school and Undergraduate-level teachers of all disciplines (Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Statistics, Social Sciences, Humanities, Economics, Geography, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, others))

Date : 1 August, 2019 at 1330 to 1700

Location : The Science Library of the University of Oslo, Blindern, Oslo, Norway

Contact : tropicsu@iubs.org; https://tropicsu.org

Registration : Registration is free, which includes participation in the workshop

Tentative Schedule

13.30 to 13.35: Welcome remarks (Prof. Nathalie Fomproix, IUBS)

13.35 to 13.45: Opening remarks (Prof. L S Shashidhara, IUBS, TROP ICSU)

13.45 to 14.15: TROP ICSU Project: Introduction, overview, and methodology (Dr. Rahul Chopra, TROP ICSU)

14.15 to 14.25: Online educational resources of the TROP ICSU Project (Ms. Aparna Joshi)

14.25 to 14.30: Launch of new TROP ICSU platform with a visual interface

14.30 to 14.45: TROP ICSU workshops with climate experts, teachers and educators: Overall summary and feedback received (Ms. Anita Nagarajan)

14.45 to 15.00: Closing the loop: From climate experts to educators to climate experts — Examples of teacher- submitted lesson plans (Dr. Megha Nivsarkar)

15.00 to 15.15: Value addition to TROP ICSU from WMO, WCRP, UN CC:Learn (Dr. Boram Lee)

15.15 to 15.30: Coffee break

15.30 to 16.00: Remarks/Comments on the TROP ICSU Project

Speakers: Dr. Lucilla Spini, Prof. Hiroyuki Takeda, Prof. John Buckeridge, Prof. Zhibin Zhang, Mr. Raymond Katebaka, Dr. Moemen Hanafy, Prof. Yongbiao Xue, other partners of the project

16.00 to 16.30: Open discussions: Feedback on the project and teaching resources, suggestions for further improvement (facilitated by Prof. L S Shashidhara)

16.30 to 16.45: Memorandum of Understanding between IUBS (on behalf of TROP ICSU and its project partners) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

16.45 to 17.00: Concluding remarks and future plans: Promoting the implementation of the TROP ICSU ideas and resources across the world, translation of key content from TROP ICSU, etc. (Prof. L S Shashidhara)