Climate Education

Dickinson offers 50+ courses each semester that satisfy the sustainability graduation requirement. They are offered by programs across Dickinson’s curriculum, including arts and humanities, social sciences, and laboratory sciences. Many of these courses include climate change as one of the topics that are touched upon.

When browsing the course list for the coming semester, type “climate change” and related phrases in the key word search box. You’ll be surprised what you find!

For a solid grounding in climate science, look for courses in Earth Sciences. To learn about climate change exposures, impacts, vulnerabilities, risks for people and the environment, and adaptation responses, look for courses in Environmental Science, Environmental Studies, Biology, Earth Sciences, International Studies, Health Studies, and Sustainability. But also look at courses in any of the social sciences and area studies. To learn about energy resources, systems, and technologies, look for courses in Earth Sciences, Physics, and Economics.

Strategies, policies, societal changes, business practices, and behavioral changes for responding to climate change are addressed by courses in Environmental Studies, Economics, International Business and Management, International Studies, Sociology, Psychology, and Sustainability, among others. Courses in arts and humanities programs can address how people experience, interpret, make meaning of, communicate about, and respond to climate change.

Many of the courses with climate change content were catalyzed by Dickinson’s Cooling the Liberal Arts Curriculum - A Campaign for Climate Change Education. Supported by a $487,000 grant from NASA, Dickinson organized and hosted faculty and curriculum development workshops in 2010 - 2012 to assist faculty in integrating climate change into courses spanning the full liberal arts spectrum: arts and humanities, social sciences, and laboratory sciences. Numerous Dickinson faculty participated in the workshops and other project activities, joined by nearly 200 faculty from more than 50 other colleges and universities.