inter-disciplinary

relevant to students’ own lives

centered on global environmental change, environmental science and environmental policies

Woman: What would you hope, Dave, that students would take for the course and what new ways would you hope they might become engaged through doing this course?

Man: Several ways really. It’s an inter-disciplinary course, we present quite a bit on the science of climate change very early on in the course, so that the students can understand the scientific process and how scientists have reached the conclusion that they have. We've developed a model for students to look at. I hope they’ll also understand a lot more about the environmental policy process, how policy-makers make policy, the constraints they face and the challenges that they have to overcome in order to make a difference. I hope that students will understand also a little bit more about their own way of life, and perhaps engage critically and reflexively, as we on the course team have done in the process of making the course, something more about their own environmental impacts, their own ecological footprint and what they can do as concerned citizens and consumers to make a difference on what is, I would suggest, the most pressing public welfare issue of the 21^st century, which is global environmental change. And humanity has not faced a crisis like this before. We've had other risks in the past, the threat of nuclear warfare during the Cold War, for example, but this this problem is of a different order of magnitude, I would suggest. And I would agree with the ambassador we interviewed that would say that we have a moral responsibility to act now to deal with these problems.