Developing Resources for Teaching and Studying Climate Change from an Interdisciplinary Perspective

In this project, students and instructors engage in interdisciplinary learning and research on climate change through a newly developed platform. The platform includes dedicated library resources, online databases, and periodic conferences to facilitate knowledge-sharing and collaboration across disciplines, filling the gap in climate education for undergraduate students. Author: Amm Quamruzzaman, Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Studies Field Grant Type: Lecturer Teaching Fellows Program (LTF)

From the author: "Climate change is an existential threat and requires an interdisciplinary approach to address it. Teaching and research are important ways to inform our current and future policymakers (i.e., students) on climate change. But much of climate change pedagogy and research is done in silos using a single-disciplinary approach. Given the current situation, I feel the need to develop an interdisciplinary research, teaching, and knowledge-sharing platform. This platform will be developed and used by instructors and students from different disciplines to teach, learn, and study climate change from an interdisciplinary perspective. There are only a few undergraduate programs like Interdisciplinary Studies Field (ISF) Major that allow students to design their own research projects and courses of study from multiple disciplines. As a result, most undergraduate students do not get a chance to study climate issues from an interdisciplinary perspective. To fill this gap, I propose to develop an interdisciplinary forum and knowledge depository that will be composed of the following: (1) dedicated library resources and departmental web pages on climate change, (2) an online database of courses offered at UC Berkeley on climate and sustainable development issues, (3) an online database of research papers, working papers, course syllabi, data sets, and links of resources related to climate change, and (4) periodic conferences and seminars to showcase and present our research findings, pedagogical tools (e.g., course syllabi, readings, GIS mapping, and assignments), student works (e.g., data compilation, research papers, and brief reports), and policy briefs related to the field."