A whole curriculum approach to addressing the climate crisis | Teaching & Learning

Climate Crisis is one of UCL’s Grand Challenges, which aim to make a significant impact on addressing some of the world’s most urgent issues by investing in interdisciplinary research and education.

The purpose of this toolkit is to provide some easy steps and resources to help academics to embed, expand and adopt Climate Crisis-related content and themes into courses and practice throughout the UCL. It draws on a series of practical examples from colleagues across UCL to illustrate how to engage with Climate Crisis through curriculum content, pedagogy and assessment (also available as video case studies), and provides links to a range of further support and guidance. 

The complexity of the climate change challenge requires a multidisciplinary approach if national targets for net-zero emissions are to be achieved. Universities provide an ideal avenue for climate change education that extends into all disciplines and supports green skills development for all sectors. 

There is growing evidence that students are attracted to institutions and courses that include sustainability and climate education, and employer demand for green skills and an holistic understanding of climate change and climate justice are increasing. Thus, there is a strong case for climate change education to be incorporated into all Higher Education Institute (HEI) degree programmes, whatever their disciplinary basis.  

What is UCL Climate Crisis? 

Climate Crisis is one of UCL’s Grand Challenges, which aim to make a significant impact on addressing some of the world’s most urgent issues by investing in interdisciplinary research and education.  

The world faces an escalating climate crisis, with rising temperatures, extreme weather events, and biodiversity loss. Urgent action is needed to reduce emissions, adapt to changing ecosystems, and develop sustainable policies that benefit both people and the planet.  

UCL’s Grand Challenge of Climate Crisis leverages its global expertise across disciplines to research, innovate and drive impactful changes. It facilitates collaboration between researchers, communities, industry and policymakers to ensure the solutions address both local and global needs. 

Why should we embed the climate crisis in our curricula? 

The complexity of the climate crisis means all disciplines have a role to play in delivering education for the net-zero transition. Embedding interdisciplinarity is crucial to ensuring that our response to climate change makes use of all the expertise HEIs have to offer and promotes knowledge exchange and integration for students and staff.” – COP26 Universities Network Working Paper (2021). 

There has never been a more important time to focus attention on the climate crisis. Leading climate scientists are warning that many of Earth’s ‘vital signs’ have hit record extremes and that the future of humanity therefore ‘hangs in the balance’ (Ripple et al., 2024). Global warming projections for 2100 have not improved since 2021, and the world is currently on a path towards 2.7°C of warming (Climate Analytics & NewClimate Institute, 2024). 

Despite the overwhelming evidence of a planetary crisis, research into people’s attitudes towards climate change in the UK suggests that a value-action gap persists, with most people agreeing that significant lifestyle changes are required whilst continuing to use a private car, eat unsustainable levels of meat and use electricity derived from fossil fuels (Hampton & Whitmarsh, 2024). Many young people are aware of these alarming reports and projections whilst immersed in unsustainable behaviours. 

Such dissonance is likely to contribute to increasing evidence of climate anxiety among young people, with 59% of 10,000 young people (aged 16-25 years) in ten countries reporting they are very or extremely worried, and more than 50% reporting each of the following emotions: sad, anxious, angry, powerless, helpless and guilty (Hickman et al., 2021). In this context, questions about how we can best prepare young people to navigate the challenges of a climate-altered present and future are both inevitable and vital.  

Given universities’ core activities of knowledge production, education and service to their communities, they are uniquely positioned to lead the societal change required to address the climate crisis. The majority of Higher Education Institution (HEI) students are young people; many will go on to be societies’ leaders and all will need capabilities to live in the climate crisis and participate in a society in transition. What they learn and how they think and act matters greatly; what their education comprises will be key. 

Changes to education are, therefore, essential to achieving the social transformation required to support both mitigation and adaptation. Whilst there are pockets of climate change-related teaching across the university, the urgency of the climate crisis places demands all Departments and Faculties to think carefully about how they can ensure that their students are able to engage with the climate crisis across taught courses. 

The following sections will help you think about how you might engage with the Climate Crisis through your course, at the level of curriculum content, pedagogy, or assessment.  

Engaging with the climate crisis through your course 

You can take multiple approaches to embed climate crisis-related content in your course; these might include minor additions to individual sessions, the reorientation of modules, or the integration of content from multiple disciplines to offer new climate change-focused modules or courses.  

 1. Curriculum integration 

Embedding the climate crisis into university curricula requires more than adding basic content about the science of climate change. It can call for a rethinking of how knowledge is framed, connected and applied. This section offers practical strategies for integrating climate-related themes across disciplines; whether you are in the sciences, humanities, or arts, these approaches support you to make the climate crisis a core part of your students’ academic journey. 

• a) Courses. Across UCL, courses have been developed with the climate crisis and sustainability embedded within them as a core theme; for example, Climate, Innovation and Sustainability Policy MPA, Climate Change MSc, Environment, Politics and Society MSc, and Youth, Society and Sustainable Futures BA. 
• b) Modules. There are a range of explicitly climate crisis-related modules across UCL; for example, Politics of Climate Change, Climate Change and Health, Environmental Knowledges and Environmental Measurement, Assessment and Law. 
• c) Interdisciplinary modules. Colleagues have also created interdisciplinary modules with a focus on climate crisis-related themes, including the Grand Challenge and Education for Sustainable Development interdisciplinary modules.  

• d) Discipline-specific content within modules. Content for the climate crisis can take three forms, which together provide students with capabilities to enable them to exercise their agency and make choices that will enhance their wellbeing and thrive in a climate changed world:  

  • Knowledge 

    HEIs have a crucial role to play in increasing knowledge and awareness about climate change and the ecological crisis, across STEM subjects, social sciences, humanities and the arts. 

    This includes the causes and consequences, globally and locally across a range of timescales, the different stakeholders involved, its interlinkages with other sustainability challenges, the variety of solutions available and the implications of choosing between these solutions for social and environmental justice. 

    It might also introduce questions about fundamental assumptions that underpin disciplinary practice, and reveal points of alignment with decolonisation agendas, especially in relation to learning from the expertise of Indigenous communities and non-Western knowledge systems. 

  • Skills 

    Of equal importance to knowledge development, education should empower students with skills, such as collaboration, critical thinking, problem-solving, information-literacy, leadership and self-awareness, to give students the power to act and effect change. 

    These skills are familiar outcomes of UCL courses, and they are articulated clearly in our Pillars of Employability. Helping students to understand and articulate them as green skills will be empowering and support their progression into green careers.  

  • Attitudes, values and behaviours

    In a context of increasing climate anxiety amongst young people, education should empower our students, fostering constructive hope, or a stance towards the future in which we believe a positive future is possible, but not a given, and each of us are called to shape that future. Through this, we can develop agency and capacity for hopeful change in our students for both the present, and their future lives.  

“Climate change often already exists in course content. For example, medical students are taught how heat stress in cardiovascular suppresses patients struggling with poorly insulated homes. However, this is not always explicitly connected with the climate crisis. Making the links clear can often show that instead of feeling unqualified to speak on matters relating to climate, considerable expertise already exists.” – Dr Giulia Pellizzari, Cancer Institute 

Case study: Professor John Sabapathy, History

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Work to incorporate the climate crisis in our teaching and education has been led in UCL History Department by a range of staff at several different levels. 

We have incorporated environmental history as a recurring topic in compulsory first year historiography modules. Numerous academic staff are interested in environmental history and so incorporate it as a topic or as major theme (e.g. a module on ‘American Borderlands: Land and Power at America’s Margins, c.1763-1900’). One colleague has developed a module that takes emergencies, the climate crisis and the Anthropocene as their explicit focus (‘Emergency History: A Natural History of Humanity for the Present’). 

We have also developed innovative collaborative modules at a Faculty level that address these issues – ‘Anthropocene Studies’ is taught by historians, geographers, anthropologists, archaeologists, art historians, literary specialists, urban planning and architecture specialists, economists, and political scientists.  – Professor John Sabapathy, History 

 2. Pedagogical approaches   

Teaching about the climate crisis requires the use of more learner-centred, critical pedagogies which value non-Western knowledge and culture and eco-centric values, and provide opportunities to imagine alternative economic, political and ecological futures. 

This section presents a range of dynamic teaching methods that bring climate issues to life in the classroom. From simulations and case studies to creative projects and community engagement, these approaches are designed to deepen understanding, and engage students in ways that foster critical thinking, emotional resilience, and a sense of agency. 

Active learning techniques are ideal for developing climate crisis related content, including:  

• Real-world case studies, including those introduced by external stakeholders. This might include engaging students with real-world climate challenges and responses, e.g. using the En-ROADS Climate Simulator. 

• Problem-based or enquiry-based learning, which encompasses the real-life challenges of climate change and puts students at the centre of identifying, evaluating and even enacting solutions. This might also lead to opportunities for innovation and enterprise (e.g. ClimateHack.AI). 

• Practice-based and experiential learning, including Living Labs, field visits or residential trips, role play scenarios, and simulations and games, such as climate negotiations and disaster response planning.

• Service Learning through which we partner with local communities or NGOs on climate crisis-related projects. 

• Creative or arts-based pedagogies, which create space for more affective responses, including engagement with art, imagery and narrative. 

  More flexible approaches to pedagogy, such as engaging panels of academics to debate issues in an interactive way, and engaging student voice, have created compelling educational experiences and outcomes. – Professor John Sabapathy, History

Case study: Dr Vivek Ramachandran, Engineering Sciences

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Since its inception over a decade ago, the UCL Integrated Engineering Programme (IEP) has embedded content that directly addresses the climate crisis. Most recently, our focus has been on the Engineering Scenarios—immersive, team-based projects simulating real-world engineering challenges. These Scenarios offer a strong platform for integrating themes of societal and environmental responsibility. 

To guide this, we implemented a Responsible Innovation (RI) framework, structured around four interrelated lenses: (1) Ethics & Social Sustainability, (2) Climate Justice & Environmental Sustainability, (3) Safety & Risk Mitigation, and (4) Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. 

To support similar efforts across UCL, we recommend grounding conversations in Care Ethics and fostering local, relational approaches that meet educators where they are. The metaphors of lenses (for analysis) and weaving (for synthesis) offer powerful tools for addressing complex, boundary-crossing issues like climate change. A tiered toolkit provides adaptable strategies suited to context, capacity, and institutional influence—enabling more inclusive, sustainable engagement across higher education. – Dr Vivek Ramachandran, Engineering Sciences 

Case study: Dr Kaori Kitagawa, IOE

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The module ‘Co-learning for Disaster and Climate Justice’ promotes collaborative learning about disaster and climate risks to support sustainability, global health and social justice. We explore this through co-learning pedagogy. 

While conventional learning and teaching focus on teacher-to-learner ‘knowledge transmission models’, co-learning dismantles the power dynamic between the ‘teacher/expert’ and the ‘learner/layperson’ through collaboration, fostering joint decision-making and deeper learning.  This process is also linked to decolonising the climate crisis, allowing us to examine pioneering research in Disaster Risk Reduction alongside topics such as citizenship, indigenous knowledge and green learning. The main assignment is a group presentation, allowing students to engage in the co-learning process firsthand. – Dr Kaori Kitagawa, IOE 

 3. Assessment 

Diverse, authentic assessments are crucial for supporting students’ engagement with and learning about the climate crisis, empowering students to apply their knowledge in real-world contexts. Consider developing assessments that go beyond knowledge recall, encouraging critical reflection, collaboration, creativity and problem-solving. 

By aligning assessments with climate-related learning outcomes, we can help students not only understand the complexities of the climate crisis but also envision and contribute to sustainable solutions. 

These might include: 

• Reflective journals on climate anxiety and hope. 
• Group projects proposing climate solutions. 
• Policy briefs or advocacy campaigns. 
• Data analysis reports using climate datasets. 
• Creative outputs (e.g., podcasts, zines, short films). 
• Scenario-based assessments. 

In line with the UCL Feedback and Assessment Principles (Sharepoint link), remember that you should consider how these are assessed to ensure academic integrity. As you explore the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in this, we recommend this toolkit on using generative AI (GenAI) in learning and teaching and resources on the Generative AI Hub.

Case study: Dr Guilia Pellizzari, Cancer Institute

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Recognising the growing interest among students, I now offer two annual dissertation projects that explore the intersection of how downstream effects of climate change have been shown to increase certain cancer incidence. 

My appointment as the UK Ambassador to the ESMO Climate Change Taskforce has further strengthened these efforts, allowing me to champion sustainable practices in oncology education and research. 

Student feedback has been overwhelmingly positive—especially at the postgraduate level—as they recognise the growing necessity of equipping themselves with knowledge that will be critical in addressing climate-related health challenges as future clinicians and researchers. – Dr Guilia Pellizzari, Cancer Institute

Case study: Dima Khazem, Institute of Education (IOE)

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I have embedded climate change into a range of modules. For example, within Curriculum Development: Issues and Principles, one assessment component requires students to collaboratively develop a group presentation based on a scenario set in Mortis City, a fictional location suffering from climate change, environmental degradation and socio-economic problems. Students are tasked with co-producing a curriculum plan. – Dima Khazem, IOE 

 4. Involving our students 

Collaborating with students to co-create climate crisis-related content, pedagogies or assessment into your courses has the potential to empower learners as active agents of change, enrich curriculum relevance, and foster a shared commitment to sustainability and climate justice. This can be undertaken through formal or informal curriculum development processes, as well as using Changemakers projects for support. 

Case study: Anoushka Jain, Political Sciences

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In 2024, we launched a pilot Changemakers project at UCL to embed climate education within the Department of Political Science. Our belief was simple: climate education shouldn’t just be an add-on, but a seamless, relevant part of the curriculum. 

By linking climate topics to each module’s central themes, we could engage students meaningfully and make learning feel relevant to their subject and future. However, many faculty members expressed constraints in finding or developing these resources. This project helped bridge that gap by providing ready-to-use resources and support for professors. 

We collaborated with six modules across the undergraduate and postgraduate level, covering topics from global ethics to research methods. For example, in ‘Global Ethics’ we introduced literature on international climate justice and environmental ethics which prompted deeper student engagement and seminar discussions on the moral dimensions of climate change. Within the module ‘Populism & Extremism’ we designed an interactive assessment on London’s ULEZ and air pollution, helping students explore the links between climate and populism.  

As a result, of the project, over 200 students engaged with new materials including readings, podcasts, seminar tasks, and assessments, all applied in modules that previously had no climate focus. This project is being extended this year to support academics across UCL. – Anoushka Jain, Political Sciences 

 5. Wellbeing and climate anxiety 

As the realities of the climate crisis become more visible and urgent, students are increasingly experiencing a range of emotional responses, from anxiety and grief to anger and helplessness. Acknowledging and addressing these emotions is a vital part of climate education, creating supportive learning environments that validate students’ feelings, foster emotional resilience, and cultivate a sense of hope and agency. By explicitly integrating wellbeing into teaching about the climate crisis, we can help students process complex emotions while staying engaged and empowered to act.  

Consider how you might: 

• acknowledge eco-anxiety and climate grief in the classroom through open dialogue and discussion; 
• create space for emotional processing and resilience-building; and 
• encourage hope through solution-focused learning. 

For example, exploring the climate crisis through the arts allows students to express complex emotions in creative and non-verbal ways, helping them process feelings of anxiety, grief or helplessness.  

 6. Professional development and support 

There is a range of professional development and support available to support you to confidently and effectively embed the climate crisis into your teaching, offering opportunities to build knowledge, share practices, and stay connected to a growing community of climate-conscious academics. 

Indicative links across a range of organisations are given in the Additional Resources section below. You might also consider further development activity, such as co-teaching with colleagues from other disciplines, inviting guest speakers from industry or policy, or engaging with Grand Challenges Climate Crisis or Sustainable UCL through their education-focused networks and events.  

“You don’t have to spend all the time doing the homework, there is a considerable amount of help available from other departments, professional bodies or any number of other sources”  – Vivek Ramachandran, Engineering Sciences 

Key takeaways 

The development of new or enhanced climate crisis content across modules and courses may not be a linear process and each individual and each department may have different routes to success. This is what UCL academics who have embedded climate crisis into their curricula suggested as their five top takeaways: 

1. Consider interdisciplinary, multi-modal approaches to curriculum development, pedagogical approaches and diverse assessments.  
2. See innovation in course development to include climate crisis as part of your academic brief, be ‘daring and different’.  
3. Engage with UCL students to support the process. Student groups across UCL are highly active in this space, including co-creating course content through Changemakers projects.  
4. Draw on the support offered by external professional bodies, learned societies or subject associations (see examples in the Additional Resources section below).   
5. Perhaps most importantly, develop a community of practice with like-minded colleagues. Leveraging advocates in other directly or indirectly climate-related fields provides both support and energy. Connect with staff across UCL to share practice and support one another, using events organised by Grand Challenges, Sustainable UCL or the Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) Network as a focal point. 

Further help

References and further reading 

Climate Analytics & NewClimate Institute (2024). Climate Action Tracker: Warming Projections Global Update. 

Facer, K. (2020). Beyond business as usual: Higher education in the era of climate change. Higher Education Policy Institute. 

Hampton, S., & Whitmarsh, L. (2024). Carbon capability revisited: Theoretical developments and empirical evidence. Global Environmental Change, 87(102895).  

Hickman, C., Marks, E., Pihkala, P., Clayton, S., Lewandowski, R.E., Mayall, E.E., Wray, B., Mellor, C. & van Susteren, L. (2021). Climate anxiety in children and young people and their beliefs about government responses to climate change: a global survey. The Lancet Planetary Health, 5(e863-e873).

Owens, J., Greer, K., King, H., & Glackin, M. (2023) Conceptualising HE educators’ capabilities to teach the crisis: towards critical and transformative environmental pedagogies. Frontiers in Education, 8(1193498).  

Ripple, W.J., Wolf, C., Gregg, J.W., Rockström, J., Mann, M.E., Oreskes, N., Lenton, T.M., Rahmstorf, S., Newsome, T.M., Xu, C., Svenning, J-C., Pereira, C.C., Law, B.E., & Crowther, T.W. (2024). The 2024 state of the climate report: Perilous times on planet Earth, BioScience, 74(12), pp.812-824.  

Thew, H., Graves, C., Reay, D., Smith, S. … & Worsfold, N. (2021) Mainstreaming Climate Education in UK Higher Education Institutions. COP26 Universities UK Briefing Paper. 

Related content

Additional Resources

Interdisciplinary or Global Frameworks 

Further organisations which support the embedding of climate crisis in education 

• IPCC Reports (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change): The IPCC provides a large repository of current and historical information relating to climate change. The ‘Library,’ contains a wide range of useful reports and content.  
• Teach the Future: This is an organisation led by students whose mission is to improve education in terms of climate emergency content and the ecological crisis. Although Teach the Future identifies itself as including the tertiary sector, much of the content is school related. Nevertheless, there are useful guides for ways to incorporate climate content across curriculum areas.  
• The Climate Reality Project: Al Gore’s programme for climate change training and education. Provides free training in-person in remote locations each year. Provides support for climate justice.  
• The Climate Crisis Advisory Group (CCAG): The Climate Crisis Advisory Group’s focus is connecting scientific advice with action. The CCAG looks at pledges and accountability. It describes itself as: ‘a consortium of experts, embodying a diverse array of academic fields and indigenous wisdom.’ Its website contains a range of useful reports.  
• International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED): The IIED is an independent policy and action research organisation. It identifies its mission as to: ‘build a fairer, more sustainable world, using evidence, action and influence in partnership with others.’ It provides a range of insightful reports on central climate crisis issues.  
• C40 Cities: C40 is an advocacy agency bringing together the mayors of more than 100 cities. Its sustainability focus covers a wide range of climate crisis topics.  
• Carbon Literacy Project: Is an organisation supporting ‘carbon literacy,’ across sectors. It provides training and certificates trainers.  
• The Green Climate Fund: The Green Climate Fund refers to itself as the: ‘world’s largest climate fund, GCF accelerates transformative climate action in developing countries through a country-owned partnership approach and use of flexible financing solutions and climate investment expertise.’ It is not education focused, but is a repository of resources relating to a wide range of climate crisis action.  
• Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges (EAUC): The EAUC is a body for promoting sustainability in the post-16 education sector in the UK and Republic of Ireland. See the Climate Action Toolkit for the Higher Education Centre. It also delivers The Sustainability Exchange which provides content from universities regarding the climate crisis.  

Free Online Climate Change Courses

• United Nations CC eLearn: Offers in excess of 100 climate crisis related courses. Available in multiple languages.  
• Unitar Free and Open Courses: Focused on the intersection of climate change with urban planning, health, and policy.  
• Coursera: (Stanford based) learning platform: Academic level courses. 
• Class Central: Class Central is an aggregator of online courses from reputable institutions.  
• Open University: Includes a free course that explores the science that underpins climate change. 

STEM Disciplines 

Social Sciences and Humanities

Professional and Vocational Areas 

This toolkit has been produced by Professor Nicola Walshe, Professor of Education, Pro-Director Education at the IOE, and Executive Director of the UCL Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education and Dr Andrew Lee, Honorary Lecturer, IOE.