Spring 2020 was a challenging semester. Mid way into the semester teaching American Government POL 103, all face-to-face classes at my institution, were suddenly and unexpectedly made remote. This provided unique instructional challenges. However, it also created unintended opportunities to illustrate to students why climate change matters in the age of covid.19.
Climate change and covid.19 are both global challenges. Because they are global challenges, the need for multilateral action can be reinforced in different sections of the curriculum. In the specific context of American Government POL 103, sections on foreign policy, economic/social policy, federalism, the presidency, Congress, and the judiciary can have group, individual and collaborative assignments tied to showing how climate change and covid.19 are no respecters of national borders. With globalization, countries have no other option but to work collaboratively via multilateral frameworks and international organizations to ensure that global problems like climate chance and covid.19 are handled collaboratively.
Secondly, the semester showed me that environmental issues and health issues are closely interrelated and cannot be understood apart from each other. This concept is hard for students to grasp, correlate and understand from a broad perspective. This is because many of them might not have travelled outside the US and experienced extreme poverty in the developing world. This extreme poverty is partly as a result of the environmental effects of climate change and economic effects of covid.19. This provided me with the opportunity to do case study analysis of individual countries, comparative analysis of two or three countries and area studies of particular regions of the world. In doing this, students are able to see how climate change can worsen the effects of global pandemics and seriously disrupt the systems, structures and cycles of global migration.
Lastly, climate change matters in the age of covid.19 because the intersection of both themes has an interdisciplinary nexus. In this project, I worked with faculty from departments of English, Anthropology, Geology, Environmental Psychology, and my field of Political Science. I think these disciplines speak to each other in many different ways about why climate change matters in the age of a global pandemic. I have been inspired to think about developing team taught courses with an interdisciplinary focus. I think this gives students the opportunity to work collaboratively, engage in experiential modes of learning and interdisciplinary understanding of complex global issues. Even as the world adjusts to the “new normal” of remote interaction at multiple levels, it is my hope that this climate across curriculum project, will be the first of many that will inspire faculty and students to create public facing content that educates and challenges individuals to confront climate change. To use the understanding of global environmental threats to tackle global public health threats. Climate change matters in the age of covid.19.
