Climate Crisis: Take Action Course

UNIV 3088 Section 002 Class# 16595
Special Topics: Climate Crisis: Take Action

August 29, 2022 – October 14, 2022

1-Credit Course
Free to all UConn students, faculty and staff

Human-caused climate change is one of the most challenging crises facing the world. Solutions exist that offer hope for addressing this challenge now. The course takes a transdisciplinary approach to the issue of climate change action, intentionally integrating across traditional academic disciplines in science, social science, and the humanities, and reaching beyond the academy to incorporate the full array of stakeholders such as those in public policy, business, and the general public.

We see the current moment as an opportunity for society to take a “head, heart, and hands” approach to the climate crisis. This model suggests that transformational learning is holistic, and relates the cognitive domain (head) to critical reflection; the affective domain (heart) to relational knowing; and the psychomotor domain (hands) to engagement. We have designed this one-credit pop-up course to provide students with a framework within which to examine their values, identity, and purpose/power as it relates to climate change; to consider the multiple ways in which social change occurs; and to identify which pathway(s) they personally may wish to pursue to take action on climate change. Our overarching goal is to encourage students to consider how they personally can become agents of change in the global climate change arena by understanding complex problems and resolving them through social action.

Course dates:

Undergraduate and Graduate Students: Monday, August 29, 2022 - Friday, October 14, 2022

Faculty and Staff: TBD

Registration

Students can enroll in Student Administration until September 12, the end of add/drop.

Course: UNIV 3088 Section 002

Class Number: 16595

Instruction Mode: Online

For detailed course information, see the course syllabus.

Course Objectives

By the completion of this course, you should be able to:

Recognize the pathways through which societal change happens (e.g. policy, legal, economic incentives, education, and activism) and how these pathways are being used to address the climate crisis.
Recognize why the climate is changing, what underlies different projections of the future, and why the United States is lagging behind other countries in addressing the climate crisis.
Identify the impacts of climate change on earth's systems, ecosystems, people, cultures, and societies.
Recognize how different mitigation and adaptation strategies present ethical, ecological, and social trade-offs affecting the future of our planet.
Analyze how and why gaps have arisen between those most responsible for climate change, and those who are most impacted by it using concepts of environmental justice, climate justice, indigenous viewpoints, and colonialism.
Examine how our human modes of literary, political, legal, artistic, and socio-economic organization affect our collective imaginations related to climate crisis solutions.
Locate valuable resources throughout the University of Connecticut and community that work toward solutions to the climate crisis.
Identify environmental sciences, social sciences, and humanities courses offered by UConn that focus on the climate crisis and appeal to your interests and plans of study.
Identify what kind of global climate future you would like to see and your own willingness, attitudes, and self-efficacy to engage in climate change actions.

Course Modules

Module 0 - Course Orientation

Faculty Team: Atkinson-Palombo, Marsh, Seth, Urban

Module 1: Framing the Pathways to Solving the Climate Crisis

Faculty Team: Atkinson-Palombo, Bontly, Godfrey, Healey, Kashwan

Module 2: Climate Change Science and Impacts

Faculty Team: Bedore, Seth, Urban, Wang, Wanik, Tabor

Module 3: Solution 1: Mitigation Strategies

Faculty Team: Agrios, Bayulgen, Kashwan, Kirchhoff, Seth

Module 4: Solution 2: Adaptation and Compensation

Faculty Team: Healey, Kashwan, Kirchhoff

Module 5: Solution 3: Political Change and the Law

Faculty Team: Abadia, Bayulgen, Healey, Kashwan, MacDougald, McKenzie, Ouimet

Module 6: Solution 4: Economics

Faculty Team: Donegan, Godfrey, Segerson

Module 7:

Solution 5: Changing Hearts and Minds and Ensuring Justice

Solution 5 Faculty Team: Bontly, Healey, Lin, Kashwan, Marsh, Ouimet

Solution 6: How Can We Act Individually, as a University, and Community

Solution 6 Faculty Team: Atkinson-Palombo, Marsh, Seth, Urban

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is this course for?

Who can take this course?

How did this course originate?

The idea for this course originated from the focus of 2020-2021 UConn Reads program on Environmental Justice and Human Rights. With the encouragement of Professor Mike Willig (EEB and Director of the Center for the Environment and Engineering), Professor Cesar Abadia-Barrero (Anthropology and Human Rights) and other members of the UConn Reads Steering Committee, the idea of developing a pop-up course focusing on the environment began to take hold---with hoped-for synergies between the course and the book, The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable by Amitav Ghosh. More than a dozen faculty, led by Professor Carol Atkinson-Palombo, Professor Kerry Marsh, Professor Mark Urban, and Professor Anji Seth, built the course with support from UConn’s Center for Excellence in Teaching (CETL). The course is expected to attract a large number of participants. The last two pop-up courses have enrolled close to 10,000 UConn students, staff, and faculty.

What is the time commitment for this class?

How will this course be graded?

Does this course have a cost?

How do I drop this course?

Without a W: Students can drop using normal add drop procedures prior to Monday, September 12. Undergraduates must request the drop by Monday, September 12 to avoid receiving a “W” on the academic record. Please note that if students are full-time based on this one credit course, they should consult with their advisor and Financial Aid to determine the best course of action regarding the withdrawal.

With a W: Requests made after Monday, September 12 must be made via the Registrar’s official withdrawal channels (Withdraw from a Course Form) and students must have advisor approval; all must be completed by Thursday, October 13.

I am a graduate student who is also teaching; which course should I select?

Do I need excess credit approval to take this course?

Can students enroll in the non-credit faculty and staff section?