{"id":169442,"date":"2021-02-25T10:03:41","date_gmt":"2021-02-25T15:03:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=169442"},"modified":"2021-02-25T14:37:19","modified_gmt":"2021-02-25T19:37:19","slug":"climate-crisis-take-action-is-third-pop-up-class-offering-at-uconn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2021\/02\/climate-crisis-take-action-is-third-pop-up-class-offering-at-uconn\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Climate Crisis: Take Action&#8217; Is Third Pop-Up Class Offering at UConn"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For the third time in less than 12 months, the UConn academic community has come together quickly to address a subject of current concern and is offering another \u201cpop-up\u201d course this spring semester.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cClimate Crisis: Take Action\u201d is a free, one-credit course that will be taught asynchronously by UConn faculty from schools and colleges from across the university.<\/p>\n<p>One version of the course will be offered for undergraduate and graduate students (UNIV3985). This eight-week course begins on Monday, March 1 and ends on Wednesday, April 28.\u00a0 Interested students can register <a href=\"https:\/\/hclleap-prod2.its.uconn.edu\/apps\/landing\/org\/app\/41345226-0003-4112-882c-17b2b4d55459\/launch\/index.html?form=F_Form1\">HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The second version of the course has been designed for staff and faculty, who can self-enroll through <a href=\"https:\/\/lms.uconn.edu\/\">HuskyCT\u2019s landing page<\/a>. This course will start on Monday, March 8 and end on Wednesday, April 28.<\/p>\n<p>The course recognizes the fact that human-caused climate change is one of the most challenging crises facing the world, but there are solutions that exist to offer hope for addressing the challenge now. The course will take a transdisciplinary approach to the issues of climate change in traditional areas such as science, social science and the humanities and then reaching out to non-traditional areas such as public policy and business.<\/p>\n<p>The idea for the course originated from the <a href=\"https:\/\/uconnreads.uconn.edu\">UConn Reads<\/a> planning for this year, to support the theme of environmental justice and human rights.<\/p>\n<p>UConn also had an Anti-Black Racism course both this semester and in the fall 2020 semester and one on the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring 2020 semester. Both of those classes were offered to the undergraduate, graduate and staff\/faculty populations at UConn. The Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning has been the coordinating point to develop each of these pop-up courses in partnership with several offices across the University.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Kerry Marsh, Climate Crisis Course, February 2021\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/E5FrbuB1pcw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis course really offers an opportunity to share what we know about the climate crisis, but more specifically, not just to share the gloom and doom, but to share that we have the capacity to solve this crisis,\u201d says Arden Chair of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Mark Urban, who serves as one of the faculty coordinators for the class.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe want to give the tools to UConn Nation to solve the climate crisis through a wide range of actions and we want to do that in a way that is not just the science, but brings in all disciplines at UConn and how we deal with problems of any kind,&#8221; he says.<\/p>\n<p>Urban is joined by associate professor and director of the Environmental Studies program Carol Atkinson-Palombo, professor of psychology Kerry Marsh, and professor of geography Anji Seth as the other faculty coordinators.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Anji Seth, Climate Crisis Course, February 2021\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Xe4s4fgua4A?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think this class shows how much expertise we have on this campus,\u201d says Seth. \u201cThese are really big complex integrated problems that can\u2019t be solved by one department or one small group of people. The popup class is a brilliant way to highlight the expertise of UConn faculty. These problems have an integrated nature and you have to study them in that way to address these enormous questions that are facing society.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The course will be taught in eight modules, with topics such as \u201cFraming the Pathways to Solving the Climate Crisis,\u201d \u201cPolitical Change and the Law,\u201d and \u201cChanging Hearts and Minds.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/provost.uconn.edu\/climate-crisis-course\/\">Here is a complete look at the details of the class.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The &#8220;hearts and minds&#8221; topic is an important aspect in the the building of the class, according to Atkinson-Palombo.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt not enough to know something in just the cognitive sense, you have to actually care about it and I would add hands and say you have to do something about it,\u201d she says. \u201cThat\u2019s a model for transformational learning.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the most exciting things about this class is, we are coming out of it with a cause for the student. But, that cause is also for the people involved in teaching and developing the course, and we are building a community. It is really fertile intellectual ground. It is more than just a class, it is building connections among the faulty. That\u2019s a really important part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Urban\u2019s interest in a course like this dates back to a few years ago when he was working in Alaska as a field biologist.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI spent a few weeks listening to the ice that had been there since the last glacial period just melting out,\u201d says Urban. \u201cYou could hear the dripping of the water and the release of rocks that had been held in the ice for the last 10,000 years. You really got a sense of walking through that landscape that is changing so rapidly because of warming.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI basically saw the earth disintegrating, or at least what used to be the Arctic falling apart. It made me realize I couldn\u2019t just be a scientist and report those results in dry journals, but I had to really reach out and share those experiences with my students and the public so I have been trying to since then.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Mark Urban, Climate Crisis Class, February 2021\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/caU0XYh54C8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>It is an interesting time for Marsh, as she is organizing the climate change class and taking the anti-Black racism class as a student.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s exciting to do both, because you can easily get so deep into your own research, that you only talk with people within your own department,\u201d says Marsh. \u201cAnd when you do go outside your own department, it\u2019s usually for administrative purposes. This is a chance to hear the science of other areas and a wonderful opportunity to get a little taste of what others are doing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Carol Atkinson-Palombo, Climate Crisis Course, February 2021\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kcbiSeYK5Xc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The new course examines the climate crisis from a variety of perspectives. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123,"featured_media":169463,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2275,1805,2226,2235],"tags":[2242],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2113],"class_list":["post-169442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-affairs","category-climate-change","category-clas","category-today-homepage","tag-climate-change"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-13 06:01:30","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/123"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169442"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":169858,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169442\/revisions\/169858"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/169463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169442"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=169442"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=169442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}