How North American Universities Are Driving Climate Change Education

Many universities acknowledge a responsibility to address climate change and are actively working to meet this goal in academic programs and undergraduate curricula. This paper provides insights from interviews with university leaders from 20 American and Canadian institutions pursuing climate action via education. Interviewees described a range of initiatives, including new General Education requirements (GEs), cross-disciplinary courses, domain-specific classes, and certificate programs, as well as the establishment of dedicated climate schools. Pathways for curricular change include academic senate climate committees, top-down support from university leadership, bottom-up advocacy and activism from faculty and students, and opportunities to leverage evolving systems. To increase climate-teaching capacity, interviewees reported instituting team teaching, supporting faculty learning opportunities, hiring faculty with climate expertise, and partnering with organizations outside academia. Qualitative data collected during these interviews were thematically coded, revealing significant takeaways including the need to appropriately reward faculty for climate-teaching efforts and to recognize the complementary virtues of high-level courses like GEs with broad reach versus deeper dives for climate-related majors with targeted reach. This paper synthesizes advice from educators who succeeded in increasing climate education at their institutions and concludes with suggestions on how to integrate climate more fully into academia’s educational mission.