Sustainable Development

Dear Mountaineers,
Let’s talk about climate solutions! We invite you to join a community of students and faculty who are growing our capacity to respond in helpful and meaningful ways to the global climate emergency. 

In Spring 2023, nine academic programs across campus are offering a course titled Climate Responses and Response-Ability, building on a similar effort in Spring 2022. The course is organized around climate solutions rather than academic disciplines, and includes climate responses based in technology, ecosystem management, markets, governance, and social and cultural transformations. This elective course just might completely transform your sense of climate possibilities as well as your own place within broader climate work.

For more information, see below, share with your friends, and plan to register for a section of Climate Responses and Response-Ability! 

 -- AppState's Climate Concerned Faculty

CLIMATE RESPONSES & RESPONSE-ABILITY

Course Description: As climate change has accelerated to the level of global emergency, students around the world are asking important questions about the future and how we can secure a just and livable climate. This course is a cross-disciplinary look at the many solutions we can implement to reduce the harms of climate change, both through climate mitigation and adaptation. Students will practice envisioning and evaluating climate responses from the perspectives of effectiveness and justice, and will consider applications of various climate solutions within our region.

Course Format: We will use a “flipped classroom” model. Half of the course will be asynchronous and in the form of video modules on climate solutions, the majority of which come from the University of California’s Bending the Curve project. The remaining half of the course will be synchronous. These weekly in-person class sessions will include discussion of what we learned about climate solutions in the video modules, points of connection with the associated department’s discipline(s), and applications in our region. 

Quote from Spring 2022 Climate Responses student:  “It was helpful to connect with climate concerned peers because it created a sense of community and made me realize just how many more people there are in the world who are equally concerned about climate change and are motivated to do something about it! That was reassuring and gave me hope for our future.”

Spring 2023 Sections Available: You can register for any one of these sections, regardless of your major, but you cannot take more than one section of this course, either within or across semesters.

This project was launched in Spring 2022 with support from the Chancellor’s Innovation Scholars Program, the College of Arts & Sciences, the College of Fine & Applied Arts, Beaver College of Health Sciences, Reich College of Education, Walker College of Business, and participating departments.