Climate Responses & Response-Ability Course

Dear Mountaineers,
We invite you to join a community of students who are growing their capacity to respond in helpful and meaningful ways to the disruptions of climate change by enrolling in a section of UCO 2552 Climate Responses and Response-Ability. Climate change is relevant no matter your major and intended profession–every job will have a climate component in the future. Studying climate solutions will give you a leg up in your field.

Academic programs across campus have participated in offering sections of this course, which is organized around climate solutions rather than academic disciplines, and includes climate responses based in technology, ecosystem management, markets, governance, and social and cultural transformations. This course might completely transform your sense of climate possibilities as well as your own place within the big picture of climate solutions work!

UCO 2552 Course Description: As the disruptions of climate change become increasingly evident, students around the world are asking important questions about how to participate in the transformations necessary to secure a safe and just climate future. This course is a cross-disciplinary, cross-sectoral exploration of the strategies that already exist for mitigating climate change and its myriad harms to human well-being. Students will practice evaluating climate responses from the perspectives of effectiveness, justice and well-being, and will consider applications of climate solutions to specific communities and contexts.

UCO 2552 Course Format: This course uses a “flipped classroom” model. Half of the course is asynchronous and in the form of video modules on climate solutions, many of which come from the University of California’s Bending the Curve project. The other half of the course is synchronous. These weekly class sessions will include activities and discussion of the climate solutions presented in the video modules, including local/regional applications.

UCO 2552 in your curriculum: UCO 2552 Climate Responses and Response-Ability counts in the General Education 2.0 program of study under the “Liberal Studies Experience” category, and will count in the General Education 3.0 program of study under the “Sustainability & Climate Literacy” category.

Spring 2025 sections of UCO 2552 will be taught by the following faculty (see registration system for section details):

• Lynette Holman, Communication
• Colin Kelley, Geography
• Rachel Wilson, Learning, Teaching, and Curriculum
• Scott Gray, Management
• Eric Frauman, Recreation Management
• Joyce Powers, Sociology
• Laura England, Sustainable Development
• Kevin Gamble, Sustainable Technology
  

Note: While the course is currently cataloged as UCO 2552, we anticipate that there will be some departmental prefixed versions (e.g., BIO 2552, GHY 2552, SD 2552, TEC 2552) likely coming next academic year.

“It was helpful to connect with climate concerned peers because it created a sense of community and made me realize just how many more people there are in the world who are equally concerned about climate change and are motivated to do something about it! That was reassuring and gave me hope for our future.”

– a previous Climate Responses student

Participating Academic Programs (as of Spring 2024)

Interdisciplinary Studies

Management

Public Health

Physics

Recreation Management

Sociology

Sustainable Development

Sustainable Technology

The Climate Responses & Response-Ability project was launched in Spring 2022 with support from the Chancellor’s Innovation Scholars Program, the College of Arts & Sciences, the College of Fine & Applied Arts, Beaver College of Health Sciences, Reich College of Education, Walker College of Business, and participating departments.