Skip to content
Skip to main content

About this free course

Become an OU student

Download this course

Share this free course

Supporting climate action through digital education
Supporting climate action through digital education

Start this free course now. Just create an account and sign in. Enrol and complete the course for a free statement of participation or digital badge if available.

This course

This course is aimed at educators in any context who are thinking about how they can support learners to gain the skills they need to address the climate emergency. It provides a taste of some of the topics covered in a 15-credit 12-week postgraduate level course Online Teaching: Addressing the Climate Emergency [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] . Both courses take a position of ‘constructive hope’ (Marlon et al., 2019) in exploring how teaching can contribute to addressing the climate emergency by:

  • increasing understanding of the scientific principles involved in the climate emergency, the implications of the changing climate for individuals, societies and communities globally and personally, and the most appropriate responses to the climate emergency at multiple levels
  • supporting skills development relevant to climate emergency-related action.
Described image
Figure 2 This course takes a position of ‘constructive hope’

You can study this course online at a pace that suits you. It does not offer fixed solutions. Rather, it aims to stimulate reflection, dialogue and changes in teaching practice. We’ll offer suggestions and ideas which we hope you’ll think through. You can use it as a framework to support group work with colleagues. You can also download the material to study offline (though you’ll need to return to the online version to interact with audiovisual material and activities, access the badge quizzes, and to track your completion of the course). The downloadable formats will contain the transcripts for audiovisual material. If you’re studying online and would prefer to read the transcripts, keep in mind that you’ll need to click on the media player first – the ‘Transcript’ button is then among the controls on the bottom bar.

At the end of the course, there is an opportunity to reflect on what you have learned and create a climate education action plan, in which you’ll design an intervention that responds to the climate emergency through an aspect of teaching or learning.