Global Change Challenge in the Higher Education Curriculum on the Approach of Blended Learning
Université de Paris Cité, France, Caroline Leininger‐Frézal, Sandra Sprenger, Universität Hamburg, Germany, María Luisa de Lázaro y Torres, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Spain, María de los Ángeles Rodríguez Domenech, EUROGEO, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Spain, Neli Heidari, Universität Hamburg, Germany, María Pigaki, Cédric Naudet, Université de Paris Cité, France, Aurore Lecomte, Université de Paris Cité, France, Marta Gallardo, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Spain
Abstract
Global change is one of the greatest challenges facing societies today. Higher education plays a crucial role in providing knowledge on global change, contributing to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. How is global change integrated into the planned, delivered and achieved curriculum? Has the pandemic promoted the development of blended learning courses on global change? To answer these two research questions, we conducted 25 interviews with academics about the prominence of global change in their courses and curriculum. We also analysed several geography curricula. It emerged that universities play a central role in mainstreaming global change into curricula in the context of education for sustainable development (ESD) and climate change. There were two main findings: (i) ESD has been implemented selectively in higher geography education, with a focus on environmental issues and different approaches and (ii) blended learning is a useful approach to develop new curriculum structures and content to educate students about global change.