Developing a new calibre of student
Climate change has largely been known as an area of concern for biophysical scientists, however to successfully address challenges we need interdisciplinary leaders.
Crop failure, food shortages, food price hikes, drought, flooding, damage to infrastructure, health ailments – these are some of the issues facing South Africans due to adverse effects of climate variability and climate change. The impacts of climate change on the environment – and thus by extension the human population – and a better understanding of the role humans play as agents of influence in climate change all call for future leaders with an interdisciplinary capacity to better understand and respond to challenges, according to Professor Coleen Vogel, Climatologist and Researcher at GCSRI.
“One of the challenges we face with global change is a lack of understanding across various sectors and paradigms of thinking. Often people tend to work in silos rather than looking at the broader picture. For example, scientists working on climate change usually focus largely on scientific aspects, business and industry tend to look at productivity and gross profits, medical experts focus on health issues and so forth. Global environmental change is a field that requires such efforts but also requires a collaborative, coordinated space for interventions from various disciplines, world views and perspectives,” says Prof Vogel.
In March 2016 the Introductory Course for Interdisciplinary Global Change Studies - offered by the the School of Plant, Animal and Environmental Sciences (APES) - brought together students/professionals from various backgrounds such as research scientists, government, business people, teachers and journalists. The Introductory Course is part of the Interdisciplinary Studies in Global Change MSc programme (that was developed via funding from the Africa Climate Change Adaptation Institute (ACCAI I) (Open Society Foundations) project “Building the Next Generation Scientists and Resilient Societies”, which aims to build Africa’s own capacity to face the challenges of climate change. Dr Ute Schwaibold, from the School of Plant, Animal and Environmental Sciences, played a critical role in seeing the course through from creation to implementation.
Vogel explains that the idea behind the Interdisciplinary Global Change Studies course is to get students to start thinking holistically and systemically and to develop a new calibre of student. “The course was developed on the premise that the paradigm of thinking one adopts is usually fundamentally pivotal in framing intervention strategies. Global change is a developing area that is often open to contestation. For adaptation/intervention strategies – to climate change for example – to be developed and implemented for a sustainable future, we need to have flexible thinkers – we need scientists to understand policy, we need business to understand science, we need decision-makers to have a comprehensive understanding of the issues in its entirety to better respond. The Interdisciplinary Global Change Studies course does not just look at the science of global change – we discuss the link between science/policy AND practice interactions and sustainability efforts; how climate change affects business/industry and vice versa: the political economy, potential interventions and impacts, social aspects, global impacts etc.,” explains Vogel.
While still a relatively new MSc programme, every year sees an increasing number of students registering. Given the rapidly changing environment, the GCSRI together with its various partners is looking towards expanding the Interdisciplinary Global Change Studies MSc programme and to find ways to possibly engage with similar efforts in the social sciences and humanities.
For more information on this course, please visit: /apes/postgraduate/postgraduate---interdisciplinary-global-change-stu/.