Internationalization of the Curriculum Through Student-Led Climate Change Teaching Activity

ABSTRACT

Internationalization of the curriculum is important in today's globalized environment, with the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of complex issues, such as climate change, requiring students to think beyond their disciplinary and cultural boundaries. Here we introduce a novel cross-discipline and cross-country activity with the overall goal to expose students to an international environmental problem (climate change) that requires an awareness of different perspectives, so as to contribute to their development of responsible global citizenship through internationalization of the curriculum. Students studying in Australia and the United States of America completed an anonymous survey on their climate change perceptions, and then the students discussed the results via a live video link. The survey results provided the catalyst for students to reflect on the ecological impact of their different lifestyles. The students could demonstrate their critical thinking skills and develop cross disciplinary thinking by exploring the vexed issue of climate change science, perceptions, and culture. Overall, the survey was simple to implement and the tutorial was successful despite the different time zones. Our activity achieved the broader goal of internationalization of student learning and enhanced our students' ability to view problems from different angles and helped foster boundary-crossing skills.

Key words::

• curriculum internationalization
• climate change perceptions
• globalization
• student-led learning

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank U. San Diego graduate student Allison Yoshida for assistance in compiling the survey results, and the ALTC LNCC project members for thoughtful discussions. We especially acknowledge the enthusiasm of the students who participated in this activity. This research received funding from Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) grant #LE9-1183. The research was carried out with ethics approval from the University of Wollongong (#HE10/294), the University of Tasmania under the auspices of ALTC grant #LE9-1183 (Ethics Reference: H11376), and University of San Diego Institutional Review Board approval (IRB project #2012-08-224). HVM was supported by an Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering Fellowship and a Guest Researcher Fellowship from the Centre for Environmental and Climate Research, Lund University.