A gentle wave before the tsunami: addressing the wicked problem of cities and climate change through a pedagogical evaluation

Abstract Teaching Cities and Climate Change demands more than retrieving concepts and scenarios; it should involve students in the complexities of sustainability and the cascading consequences of global warming. This study draws on a five-semester experience while teaching an online course titled 'Cities and Climate Change ' at the Central American University 'José Simeón Cañas' (UCA) in El Salvador. This research aims to address the question: How can teaching this course promote immediate effectiveness, long-term retention, and transformative competencies among undergraduate students at a Global South university? The course, taken by 738 students enrolled in ten academic programs, prompted the application of theory to concrete situations and, conversely, contributed to other courses in their curriculum by providing a holistic view of cities. By employing a multi-phase sequential design (MSD) with a longitudinal perspective, this study combines in-course surveys conducted during five semesters of teaching (2020–2022), ex-post semi-structured interviews in 2022, and ex-post surveys administered in 2025 to assess the long-term impact and knowledge retention. The results show that the complex approach to cities and climate change, although challenging, emerged as one of the most valuable aspects of the course, engaging students with this century's wicked problems that they still remember. The pedagogical evaluation of students in the cross-semester data yielded high ratings for course quality, encompassing effectiveness, cognitive aspects, pedagogical design, engagement, communication, and assessment. Follow-up qualitative evaluations after 2 years of taking the course, and surveys after 5, 4, and 3 years, revealed lasting competencies, including conceptual knowledge that participants could still recall, as well as applied skills and abilities reflected in personal changes, such as shifts in behavior, increased adaptability, enhanced agency, and refined communication practices. This paper contributes to the academic study of teaching Cities and Climate Change by integrating longitudinal mixed-methods evaluation tools with a student-centered view of curriculum effectiveness in a Global South context.