Eighteenth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

As countries grapple with the impacts of climate change and related ecological challenges, educational institutions have come under pressure to create innovative curricula that prepare students to understand and address increasingly globalized and complex environmental challenges, such as climate change – through developing critical thinking and creativity skills, socio-cultural diversity competency, empathy, and a sense of global stewardship and citizenship. In this collaborative online international learning project, we utilized a service-learning approach, combined with a participatory video strategy to encourage students from DePaul University in Chicago and the University of Calabar in Nigeria to build interpretative knowledge from their lived experiences, using film. We selected service-learning because it is more responsive to the technologically driven communication culture of students, who tend to demonstrate a growing interest in activist forms of civic participation and organizing through online mediums. Our project aimed to mobilize individual action against climate change by building a movement of climate champions. The use of service-learning contextualized the student experience by targeting real problems. Students participated in climate storytelling and interviewing workshops prior to and during the virtual exchange project. Guided by community organizations and the instructors, they identified and interviewed, on video, individuals who were experiencing significant climate change impacts; then they collaboratively analyzed and presented on the data they collected, seeking to understand the underlying sources, hidden meanings, and costs of climate change. Students contributed insights and perspectives that can positively influence and advance the climate debate and the efforts to find effective solutions.