Climate competencies for real-life action: developing a master level course "Living with changing climate"

In order to effectively mitigate, adapt to and benefit from climate change, society needs climate expertise. To enhance professional climate action competencies and to educate students in climate-informed decision making a new master-level course, "Living with changing climate" was developed. This course was created by a multidisciplinary team of experts from the Institute for Atmospheric and Earth System Research (UH-INAR), the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) and the Department of Educational Sciences at the University of Helsinki, as part of the ClimComp-project funded by the Research Council of Finland.

Designed for an online learning platform, the course is part of the Climate University curriculum. Climate University (www.climateuniversity.fi), a network of higher education institutions in Finland that provides climate and sustainability education in collaboration with schools and working life. The "Living with changing climate" course covers the causes and complexity of climate change, its impacts and adaptation needs, future scenarios and their links to mitigation efforts, and acquaints students with open-source weather and climate data, applications and their use, and the principles of climate services. Additionally, students apply the knowledge gained in project work on a real-life example, enabling them to collaborate with stakeholders. The course was piloted during spring 2023 among a group of students with diverse background. Based on the feedback received, the course material was improved and published in the curriculum in autumn 2023. The design and development process of the course, including the challenges encountered, and lessons learned are presented.