Curriculum Development for Climate Change Education in Global South
The course aims at enhancing curriculum design capacity for curriculum designers and teachers in different levels from basic education to secondary and vocational education in climate change education.
5 ECTS Credits — Studies start 14 January 2025 — Tampere University
Course dates
14 January 2025 – 29 April 2025
Registration period
31 October 2024 – 6 January 2025
Coordinating university
Tampere University
Instructors
Credits
5 ECTS
Course dates: 14.1.2025 - 29.4.2025
Registration dates: 31.10.2024 - 6.1.2025
Coordinating university: Tampere University Course code on Sisu: EDU.502
Responsible teacher: Golaleh Makrooni (if.inut@inoorkam.helalog) & Eero Ropo (if.inut@opor.oree)
Credits: 5 ECTS
Course summary:
The course aims at enhancing curriculum design capacity for curriculum designers and teachers in different levels from basic education to secondary and vocational education in climate change education. The course will introduce the main organizational principles of climate change education and education for sustainable development. The course will be based theoretically on the so-called reconceptualist ideas of curriculum, which is a multidisciplinary approach to understanding curricula from multiple perspectives as cultural, social, and autobiographical. Accordingly, curricula will and should be developed and fitted to cultural and geographical contexts.
Recognizing education's pivotal role in tackling global challenges like climate change, it is vital to cultivate awareness and responsibility, prompting engagement in adaptive and mitigative efforts. Climate change has hit mostly countries in the Global South hard, making them more vulnerable. It is crucial to figure out why this is happening and work on more sustainable adaptive and mitigative strategies locally and globally.
This course provides an opportunity to cultivate a global understanding of the phenomenon, emphasizing the importance and interconnectedness of local actions. While discussing curriculum for climate change education in this course, our focus remains on teachers. They play a key role in implementation, with their knowledge, attitudes, and positioning within this context being imperative.
The course is organized around five central themes, each consisting of two sessions. These central themes for climate change education include the need for integrated, interdisciplinary curricula, understanding the causes and consequences of climate change (learning to know), action and necessary skills (learning to do), Sustainable development and climate change, thinking about new strategies to meet future challenges, and learning how to live together and be interdependent in a global society. The course will also provide practical examples, focusing particularly on Southern Asia.
Learning outcomes:
The participants will be able to:
- Analyze the main factors for an effective curriculum to strengthen the education system in response to climate change education;
- Understand the complexity and consequences of climate change;
- Understand the consistence of mitigation and adaptation of climate action with universal values;
- Use the necessary skills (cognitive and social) to developing the imitation and adaptation for encountering climate change challenges;
- Assess the influence of individual lifestyle choices on our social and ecological development;
- Identify the immediate and long-term consequences of climate change education;
- Relate emotional complexity on one’s own identity and responsibility for the climate change;
- Understand the benefit and the value of local knowledge and narratives for climate change education;
- Develop concepts and outlines with a multidisciplinary perspective of training programs to CC.
Learning methods:
- The course employs an interactive pedagogical approach, including student-centered methods,
- Collaborative approach such as group work, and global and local case studies
- Individual and group assignments.
- Peer and group discussions and peer feedback
Completion methods:
The course comprises 130 working hours and is divided into 10 modules. Each module comprises 3 hours in the different tasks to be carried out in individual or group work. The course will be delivered in a flexible mode. However, to successfully complete it, participants must attend at least seven out of the ten sessions online, fulfill tasks throughout the sessions, and submit a final essay.
Study material:
Various materials will be available on Moodle, including instructional videos, interactive lecture materials (PowerPoint), useful links, and reading materials such as scientific articles and reports.
Assessment criteria:
The final grade is made up of the evaluation of the different tasks and the active presentation. The tasks are assessed in percentage terms as follows.
- Peer review and feedback of written assignments (15%)
- Participation in online discussions among students (15%)
- Individual assignments on each topic (included reading articles, reflecting on the articles, and highlighting key points in a short summary) (20%)
- Group assignment (20%)
- Writing an essay (5 pages included references) (30%)
Maximum number of students:
45 students
Course schedule:
The course sessions will be on Tuesdays at 14.00-16.30 (Finland time).
| Session | Date |
| Session 1 | 14.01.2025 |
| Session 2 | 28.01.2025 |
| Session 3 | 04.02.2025 |
| Session 4 | 18.02.2025 |
| Session 5 | 04.03.2025 |
| Session 6 | 18.03.2025 |
| Session 7 | 25.03.2025 |
| Session 8 | 08.04.2025 |
| Session 9 | 15.04.2025 |
| Session 10 | 29.04.2025 |
Get to know more about Golaleh Makrooni, our students experiences, and the course content in this blog post written as part of the "Face behind the course" section.
