Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) on Climate Change and Health: Teaching a Global Audience

Abstract

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) give the opportunity to engage and teach a global audience into the rationale and arguments of climate change and its impact on health. We want to describe the possibilities of MOOCs for climate change education on the example of three MOOCs on climate change and health that were offered on the online learning platform iversity and FUN-MOOC: one MOOC was designed for a broader audience without prior requirements in the area of climate system and climate change. The learning target was health impacts worldwide, best practices in adaptation and mitigation strategies, as well as the promotion of health co-benefits. This MOOC was subtitled in ten different languages. An executive MOOC was targeted at policy makers as part of their conference briefing for the climate conference COP21 in Paris in 2015. The key arguments of the MOOC included the development of climate policies and their fair share of the burden and benefits, as well as scientific evidence behind the four key arguments based on human health for climate policy (Sauerborn 2016a, b). The third MOOC focused again on a broader audience on climate change and health within an African context for a francophone audience. In the following, we introduce MOOCs for teaching climate change education to a global audience, also with a focus on developing countries, followed by a description of the three MOOCs on the topic of climate change and health in more detail with regards to their contents, participant demographics, retention rate and encountered challenges. We discuss our findings with regards to all three MOOCs and will give insights into practices for employing MOOCs in climate change education, for developed and developing countries.