Professor: Laura Schifter

F - Split Schedule: 9:00am to 12:00pm or 1:15pm - 2:30pm

The UN IPCC reports on climate change make it clear that to avoid the most devastating climate impacts, we need a global societal transformation, and we all have a role to play in advancing solutions. Education has been identified as a critical social tipping point to help the world meet the decarbonization needed by 2050, and yet education is underutilized in climate solutions. Whether transitioning our largely diesel school bus fleet to electric, leveraging post-secondary education to prepare students to shape the clean economy of the future, partnering with Indigenous communities to build new understandings of environmental conservation, or advancing the education of girls and women internationally, the education sector can broadly mobilize to advance systemic change and help advance a more sustainable, resilient, and equitable future. In this course, students will learn about the intersections of climate change and the education sector, engage with and research solutions for the sector, and develop plans to advance policy for systemic action. Based on student-directed projects, students will consider opportunities to leverage change through policy at the local, state, or federal level or the role of other entities such as NGOs, philanthropy, business, and the media, in advancing systemic change.

Class Notes:

This cass will meet as a full group during the following dates (and also share that on the off weeks.

• 1/27
• 2/3
• 2/17
• 3/3
• 4/7
• 4/14

On off weeks, students will have a one-hour section meeting.