When UC San Diego freshman Mutale Malama was scrolling through a list of course options, “The Oceans” caught her eye. It’s one of more than 40 classes students can take to fulfill the university’s new climate change requirement.
“I think, if you care about yourself and others, then you should care about the science concerning this earth and where we are right now,” Malama said.
Starting this fall, first-year students in bachelor’s degree programs must take a one-quarter course related to climate change. Scripps Institution of Oceanography offers several of them. Others are in departments like urban planning, anthropology and economics.
A UCSD spokesperson said the goal was to align the course offerings with general education and major requirements, so students could take the classes without adding to their overall workload.
Wayne Yang, provost of UCSD’s John Muir College, co-chaired the group that developed the requirement. He said some of the strongest advocates for the requirement weren’t climate scientists.
“They were people from arts and humanities, from literature, from social science,” he said. “They really understand that climate change is not simply a scientific problem. It's a scientific fact, but it is actually a social problem. It’s a political problem. It’s a cultural problem.”
Yang said they considered requiring all students to take the same class. Instead, they wanted to show that hope for addressing climate change lies in every student.
“We don't want a whole class to say, ‘Things are bad, see you later.’ I think that's what we've done to this generation, right? We've left this generation in kind of a bad place,” he said. “Instead, the faculty realized that what we want is to give this generation, the next generation, all the tools to combat climate change.”
The Jane Teranes Climate Change Education Requirement is named in honor of a beloved Scripps Institution of Oceanography professor who worked to bring climate education to undergraduates.
“Working in climate change and understanding the facts about climate change can sometimes feel overwhelming,” she said in a 2019 interview. “Working with undergrads makes me feel like I’m doing something useful. I see the potential for solutions, and that gives me hope.”
Yang said one computer science course follows the life cycle of a computer — from mining the materials required to build them to discarding electronic waste. Yang helped create a class on how indigenous communities are adapting to climate change.
“We're not going to win this fight for the planet, for ourselves and our own lives, really, without all of those disciplines,” Yang said.
UCSD said it’s the first campus in the University of California system and the first major public university to launch a climate change requirement.
“I don't know how we're going to solve climate change, but I have no doubt that our students are going to be part of it,” Yang said.
