Undergraduates Engage in combatting Climate Change through a Cross-Campus Course
A groundbreaking new course titled "Bending the Curve: Climate Change Solutions" is being introduced at six University of California (UC) campuses, aiming to address climate change by integrating scientific, technological, economic, social, and policy innovations.
The course, which originated from the UC's groundbreaking report "Bending the Curve: Ten scalable solutions for carbon neutrality and climate stability," is a testament to the university's commitment to driving innovation and change to advance society, propel economic growth, and make our world a better place.
The initiative was led by Professor Veerabhadran "Ram" Ramanathan from UC San Diego, who hopes that the work done by students in the course can have a larger impact. To facilitate this, Professor Ramanathan has established a unique partnership with the California Digital Library (CDL) for students to develop their course projects into published open-access articles.
Each instructor has flexibility to shape and adapt the course based on their expertise and the interests of the students. The course was developed by an interdisciplinary team that includes UC Santa Barbara social scientist Hahrie Han, Alan Roper from UC Office of the President, and UC San Diego research associate Astrid Hsu.
The course is framed around the report's 10 scalable solutions and features video lectures from top UC experts on each topic. It uses a dynamic "flipped" classroom approach, where students learn content through online video lectures before class and have in-person discussions.
The course aims to attract students from various academic backgrounds to work together in identifying and exploring solution-focused projects. It focuses on building student skills in areas such as energy and utilities, mitigation strategies, social justice, electric power systems, and community organizing.
UC San Diego, where the course was first piloted, is one of the world's most important centers for global earth science research and education. Established in 1960, the university is driven by exceptional scholars who aren't afraid to look deeper, challenge expectations, and redefine conventional wisdom. Scripps Oceanography, an organization at UC San Diego, operates a fleet of four oceanographic research vessels and is home to Birch Aquarium at Scripps, the public exploration center that welcomes 500,000 visitors each year.
The course is being taught as an undergrad course during the Winter 2018 quarter at UC San Diego, UC Davis, and UC Irvine, and will be coming to UC Santa Barbara, UC Riverside, and UC Santa Cruz later in 2018. It embodies a vision of collaborative, integral thinking to design cultures of collaboration for climate action, reflecting the diverse expertise from sciences to humanities within the UC system.
The course is closely aligned with the University of California's Carbon Neutrality Initiative (CNI), which aims for the UC system to achieve carbon neutrality. The initiative encourages involvement from students and faculty through programs like the "CNI Student Fellows," where participants contribute to climate action planning, carbon offset studies, and the ongoing implementation of campus sustainability plans. The course acts as part of this integrated strategy by equipping students with practical skills and interdisciplinary knowledge necessary to meet the carbon neutrality goals through mitigation and adaptation solutions.
One student who took the course when it was piloted at UC San Diego, Lara Streiff, worked on a research project with Professor Ramanathan and had a paper published in the journal Urban Climate in September 2017. The course serves both as a platform to disseminate California’s successful climate change strategies and as a hands-on educational tool that prepares students to actively contribute to achieving the UC system’s ambitious goal of carbon neutrality, fostering an engaged and informed campus community at the forefront of climate action.
- Collaborative, integral thinking is showcased in the course "Bending the Curve: Climate Change Solutions," which integrates scientific, technological, economic, social, and policy innovations for climate change solutions.
- To prepare students for real-world contributions, the course is designed to equip them with skills in areas like energy and utilities, mitigation strategies, social justice, electric power systems, and community organizing.
- The course, part of the University of California's Carbon Neutrality Initiative, reflects the diverse expertise within environmental-science, climate science, science, and education-and-self-development, available through online-education and on-campus learning.
- The course serves as a means to disseminate California's climate change strategies, while providing students with the practical skills and interdisciplinary knowledge necessary for meeting the ambitious goal of carbon neutrality, thus fostering an engaged and informed campus community involved in climate action.
