Global Environmental Change Science: Education and Training

A workshop was held in June 1994 at the University of Western Ontario, London, concerned with education and training in global environmental change science. It was principally devoted to post-school education from first year university to postgraduate levels. I have arranged the papers and the results of discussions in the following order: Section 1: Introduction These papers set the scene. It begins with one by Beran whose original idea the workshop was. Schneider outlines various ways in which interdisciplinary courses in general and global change science in particular can be set up. Fyfe looks at the wider issues of global change that affect us all. There are then papers which examine major problems (Leal Filho; and Troost) and programmes to meet them (Carter; Fisher). Harger Section 2: Global Change Science Courses These papers are concerned with courses concerned with various aspects of global change courses. They include contributions from nine countries at different levels of secondary and university education. Section 3: Resources for teaching Global Change Science New resources are needed for effective courses, particularly those in which students can participate actively. There are wide selections both in terms of topics and teaching strategies, most of which are interactive. Section 4: Workshop discussions The workshop participants split themselves amongst three groups, one to discuss early undergraduate courses, another with senior undergraduate courses and the third with postgraduate courses. Their discussions are brought together in this section and common themes are identified.