06. December 2022

Climate education: University of Bonn students re-envisioning what “university” means Climate education: University of Bonn students re-envisioning what “university” means

Recommendations for interdisciplinary teaching and learning at universities now published

Fridays for Future has brought the issue of climate change onto our streets—but what would a university education look like that gave students the interdisciplinary skills they needed to help fight climate change? A group of students at the University of Bonn have worked together to come up with some recommendations, which they have now published as part of the “Climate Change—Learning for Future” project. This was run by the Wissenschaftsladen Bonn in partnership with the University of Bonn and funded by the Stiftung Umwelt und Entwicklung Nordrhein-Westfalen, an environmental and development foundation for North Rhine-Westphalia.

What would a university education look like that gave students the interdisciplinary skills they needed to help fight climate change? Students at the University of Bonn came up with some recommendations for this in a seminar.
What would a university education look like that gave students the interdisciplinary skills they needed to help fight climate change? Students at the University of Bonn came up with some recommendations for this in a seminar. © Christiane Büchner/WILA Bonn
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Browse the list of available courses, pick some, then work through your curriculum over the semester—this is often what studying looks like, more or less. The seminar taught by the “Climate Change—Learning for Future” project by the Wissenschaftsladen Bonn in partnership with the University of Bonn did things a bit differently: students from eight different disciplines at the University of Bonn and Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences devised their own two-semester educational program—and on the highly complex topic of climate change. The project partners have now published the students’ list of recommendations alongside other educational materials.

Climate education at universities needs to be given the freedom to experiment and fail

“Never before at a university event have I been given so much freedom and the ability to experiment creatively and get active in so many areas at the same time,” said one student. Among other things, this experimentation was reflected in the great many activities that the students engaged in during the project: their own peer-to-peer educational module, an interactive climate literacy map that can be “toured,” podcasts, panel discussions, Instagram—all the students tackled the question “What do I want to learn with other people in order to help fight climate change, and how do I want to learn it?” in their own way in various working groups. The experience they gained led them to make this recommendation: a form of university education that does justice to such an important and all-encompassing topic as climate change needs this freedom for learning and experimenting so as to find out what motivates individuals and what they need in order to act, among other things.

Skills for the future: much more than just expertise

With these recommendations, the seminar is very much in line with the findings that are becoming increasingly prevalent in the education sector under the name “education for sustainable development” (ESD). The lesson to be learned is that moving from expertise on the page to more sustainable behavior in real life requires dedicated points of contact in the literal sense—plus additional “skills for the future” such as the ability to handle conflicts or a range of views on global heating. Students repeatedly practiced and demonstrated these skills in all manner of different scenarios, including a total of six panel discussions featuring educational experts from both within and outside the higher-education sector. “We’re delighted that the ‘Climate Change—Learning for Future’ project made it possible to incorporate insights from education for sustainable development into a course so comprehensively,” said Christiane Overkamp, Managing Director of the Stiftung Umwelt und Entwicklung Nordrhein-Westfalen, which is supporting numerous other ESD projects in North Rhine-Westphalia besides this one. “It makes this project a role model for other universities to follow.”

Sustainability and climate should be at the heart of university teaching

That this project should have been launched in Bonn of all places is no coincidence. The University of Bonn was among the first in Germany to set up a Vice Rectorate for Sustainability and last year formulated a sustainability mission statement together with representatives from its administrative, teaching and student bodies. Vice Rector for Sustainability Annette Scheersoi said: “Our mission statement makes clear our intention to embed sustainability right across the University—in research and operations but also in teaching. With this in mind, we’re currently devising new teaching and learning activities that will enable students to tackle sustainability issues to a much greater degree but also, and most importantly, with real-life relevance.”

Inspiration for following suit and other activities

In this spirit, the project partners see the recently published recommendations, the “Climate Change—Learning for Future” seminar and other educational material as giving them ideas for how such vital challenges as climate change as well as sustainability issues such as more sustainable consumption or protecting biodiversity can be integrated into the University in an interdisciplinary and practically relevant way. “We want to keep on working to ensure that researchers and students can help to solve really specific challenges on the ground,” said project manager Brigitte Peter, Managing Director of the Wissenschaftsladen (WILA) Bonn. “So we’re looking forward to continuing to expand our network here and trying out other solutions for the University together.” For now, anyone interested can access all the recommendations, podcasts and recordings of the panel discussions on the website. For the students from the seminar, meanwhile, there is no let-up: they will be trialling the peer-to-peer educational model developed there in practice for the first time in spring 2023.

About the project:
The “Climate Change—Learning for Future” project was organized by the Wissenschaftsladen Bonn and the University of Bonn. Comprising podcasts, panel discussions and workshops and culminating in recommendations for a new form of university education, it was supported by the Stiftung Umwelt und Entwicklung Nordrhein-Westfalen.

You can find more information on the recommendations here.

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