Teaching modules play an important role in achieving learning goals, and their design must be adapted to student characteristics. This research aims to develop a teaching module design that integrates climate change material with Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and the local wisdom of the Bugis community, as reflected in the Kutika…

This article takes its point of departure from the younger generation's problematic relationship with time and the future. A general sense of changeability and directionlessness in society compromises young people's confidence in themselves to make a difference as individuals in important global issues affecting their futures, such as climate…

Grand challenges such as energy, water, and food scarcity limit our growing population's ability to live sustainably on Earth. Such complex societal challenges, which interconnect many human and natural systems, will require today's students to apply approaches that go beyond simple cause and effect. To help instructors teach students how to…

As the developers of "Journey to El Yunque," we have taken a different approach to the process of designing a science curriculum. Rather than start with a specific set of concepts or skills to target as learning outcomes, we started by identifying a specific community of practice to which we sought to connect students. Researchers in the…

Ecosystem modeling is a critically important tool for environmental scientists, yet is rarely taught in undergraduate and graduate classrooms. To address this gap, we developed a teaching module that exposes students to a suite of modeling skills and tools (including computer programming, numerical simulation modeling, and distributed computing)…

Climate change is not local; it is global. This means that many environmental issues related to climate change are not geographically limited and hence concern humans in more than one location. There is a growing body of research indicating that today's increased climate change is caused by human activities and our modern lifestyle. Consequently,…

Internationalization of geography in higher education comes in many guises. This paper discusses some of these, with particular attention to curriculum development and transfer. The context is Bangladesh and a case study is presented of a link programme between three higher education institutions in that country and one in the UK. The British…

We report the results of a climate change module delivered to 48 Grade 3/4 students in Nova Scotia, Canada. We tested for prior knowledge and evaluated interventional effectiveness using art elicitation. Common climate change misconceptions were demonstrated in their preintervention artwork, while postintervention artwork showed improved…

This study reports on an effort to illustrate the coupling of educational research with ongoing curriculum development to promote effective and evidence-based online learning. The research findings have been used to inform the "EarthLabs" curriculum development team as they revise existing modules and create new modules, in order to…

Authentic scientific data, when richly contextualized, can provide the basis for compelling learning experiences. Many undergraduate students either do not have access to primary data, or if they do, the data are so abstract that student engagement is limited. Here, we describe contextual information and data-rich, student-centered activities we…

Scientists have associated the El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon with extreme climate events such as flooding in California, droughts in Australia, fires in Indonesia, and increased hurricane activity in the Atlantic Ocean. The popular media is constantly attributing individual storms to the ENSO phenomenon. The reality is that a…