Building a climate change syllabus bank

[Jeff Colgan]

Dear colleagues -

I write to you to ask for your help with a new Climate Change Syllabus Bank. In keeping with the spirit of free sharing on this listserv, the idea is to make it easier for instructors to teach climate change.

The idea owes much to Michael Ross, who saw that while there is a huge amount of student interest in the politics of climate change on college campuses, the supply of courses is often lacking -- even though climate change will affect the politics, sociology, economics, and law of the 21st century. Developing a new syllabus from scratch can be a barrier, so we want to offer some existing syllabi, for free, to potential instructors. Not only might this generate more courses about climate politics, it might also improve the existing courses, even among experts like yourselves. Having just taught my first-ever course on the politics of climate change this past fall, I have some personal experience in the startup costs, and some lessons learned! 

I know of at least two other syllabus banks out there, one at AESS — which is behind a paywall — and one that Wil Burns organizes, which specializes on climate law (https://www.iucnael.org/en/online-resources/climate-law-teaching-resources). Even with these two out there, there seems to be room for a free, open-access syllabus bank that would help with climate courses across the social sciences.

Not all courses are the same. Different instructors have different tools and approaches — like film documentaries or in-class simulations — that teach climate change in lots of different ways and from different perspectives. For instance, my course this fall emphasized (1) climate solutions, not just “admiring the problem,” and (2) ethnic and gender diversity when offering a range of readings.

To submit your syllabus, follow the link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdTDGnl7u1_evbPhJ_MMSTqyUXEQMyJX6xrbGQo6C0ZemlIcQ/viewform?usp=sf_link 

After you submit, the new Climate Solutions Lab at Brown will process the data and make all the syllabi available to others on an easily-searched website. For more info on the Climate Solutions Lab, please follow us on Twitter @ClimateSolLab or check our website https://watson.brown.edu/climatesolutionslab/ 

Please ALSO spread the word. We would love syllabi from lots and lots of people. The only boundary condition here is “post-secondary courses, about climate change, taught in the social sciences” – not geophysics or atmospheric science.

Answers to potential questions:

1) Yes, we absolutely want your syllabus even if it is on a broad topic like “Global Environmental Politics,” so long as it has a sizable climate change component

2) When the Syllabus Bank is actually up and running, I’ll post the news on Twitter

Thanks in advance,

Jeff Colgan
Richard Holbrooke Associate Professor of Political Science
Web: www.jeffcolgan.com  Twitter: @JeffDColgan