Climate change and built environment education: A pedagogical approach to foster interdisciplinary learning

Sibilla, Maurizio; Kurul, Esra

Abstract

Higher Education Institutions have an important role to play in Climate Education. One dimension of this role is to equip future practitioners with the necessary knowledge and skills. Therefore, interdisciplinary approaches to learning and teaching. However, putting interdisciplinarity into practice finds resistance from disciplinary silos. This contribution presents findings from pedagogical research conducted between 2017-2023 and focused on climate change topics relevant to the built environment sector, such as energy efficiency, low-carbon transition and urban resilience. It reports on opportunities and barriers identified, providing examples of how Higher Education Institutions can position themselves to deal with climate change challenges. A mixed-methods approach was developed and tested to foster interdisciplinary learning in the built environment curricula. It included Constructive Grounded Theory, Diverse Case Studies, Cognitive Mapping Technique, and Meaningful Learning Activities. Each method absolved a specific role within the proposed pedagogical approach, from collecting data to developing interdisciplinary teaching and learning materials to facilitate collaborative exercises. Findings pointed out the applicability of the developed approach, the value of this approach for future practitioners, and the need for evolution of Built Environment curricula to rise to the climate change challenges. The results are ready to be used by educators in Higher Education Institutions to design bespoke tasks to foster interdisciplinary learning in their own contexts.

• Online Publication Date: Aug 6, 2024
• Publication Date: Aug 6, 2024
• Deposit Date: Sep 6, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 7, 2025
• Publisher: Springer (part of Springer Nature)
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Book Title: University Initiatives on Climate Change Education and Research
• ISBN: 9783031259609
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25960-9_81-1
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/11907637
• Contract Date: Jan 28, 2024