Teaching Climate Education in an Urban University Classroom

COP26 was a turning point for youth representatives from different countries, who for the first time were included to participate in climate change discussions at all levels. These youth representatives called on their peers to be more meaningfully engaged in the fight towards a better environmentally friendly future for all.  How can we engage students in our classrooms who are not as passionate, and who may or may not care about climate change?   New approaches and strategies are needed in the classroom to engage students in climate education in order to increase climate literacy. Towards this goal, a course on global climate change is created with the aim of increasing university students’ knowledge about climate change, as well as encourage them to be part of the solution to mitigate its impacts on people and resources.  One particular approach used in the course are case studies that engage students in realistic scenarios that contextualize concepts. Case studies, which also encourage critical thinking, active learning, and peer interactions, can be used in various teaching modalities.  This particular course is taught online asynchronous and included several activities to increase learning of major topics in climate change, including planning solutions for risk assessment and management. As a final project, students worked on a placed-based case study to understand the consequences of climate change in an urban city like New York City.  The benefits of using the case studies and other approaches, learning outcomes, as well as challenges and lessons learned developing and teaching this course during the COVID-19 pandemic are discussed.