Linking Biophysical, Socioeconomic, and Political Effects of Climate Change on Agro-Ecosystems

ABSTRACT

To meet the sustainability challenges of the future, we need leaders who are trained to work well in diverse, multidisciplinary teams and a populace that understands the biophysical and socioeconomic challenges facing humanity and how to meet the needs of its diverse stakeholders. With a goal of increasing climate literacy amongst college students, we developed a cooperative jigsaw activity to encourage students to explore the complexities of joint decision making when taking into account multiple perspectives. We found that undergraduate science (natural science and natural resources) students were engaged, drew on a variety of types of evidence to support claims about managing rangelands impacted by climate change, and referenced both complex social and natural systems in their postassessment.

Key words::

• climate literacy
• agriculture
• cooperative learning
• undergraduate students

Acknowledgments

We thank our colleague, David Augustine, for his valuable feedback as we developed the Western Great Plains case study. The Tibetan case study was informed by a study supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (SBE#0624315) awarded to Klein, Yeh, Boone, Galvin, and Ojima.